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Margery’s Vacation. Page 123 




Margery’S Vacation 


ELLA BEECHER GITTINGS 



BOSTON AND CHICAGO 

CTongrtgationnl SitnliapsScbaol anti PubUsfjing ^loctetg 



Copyright, 1891, by 

Congregational Sunday-School and Publishing Society. 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER PAGE 

I. The Beginning of It 5 

II. Bearing the Infirmities of the Weak ... 16 

III. The “ Wild-goose Notion ” 22 

■ IV. An Unexpected Turn of Affairs 35 

V. The First Day at Mrs. Morgan’s 46 

VI. Sunday 64 

VII. The First Letters 86 

VIII. Margery’s Charge 103 

IX. A Page or Two of Margery’s Journal . . . 114 

X. Margery’s Sunday-school Class 128 

XI. Applied Theology 139 

XII. Maggie Dart 155 

XIII. Margery and Maggie 170 

XIV. Margery Meets a Friend 190 

XV. The Native 199 

XVI. Mother’s Letter 21 1 

XVII. Nora 218 

XVIII. A Visit to Miss Gail 237 

XIX. A New Acquaintance 255^ 

XX. A Ride and a Talk . 272 

XXL In the Country 288 

XXII. The Kaleidoscope . 

' 3 


302 












MARGERY’S VACATION. 


CHAPTER I. 


THE BEGINNING OF IT. 


HAMMOCK in an orchard ! O Margie 



^ ^ Mayne, how delicious that would be ! A 
real orchard, with apples in it and soft grass 
under foot ; with a cool breeze swaying the ham- 
mock, and bees humming and birds flitting in 
and out among the branches, butterflies skimming 
in across the flecks of sunlight between the 
leaves, and nothing to do for hours, maybe, but 
just to lie and rest— to see it and feel it all 
around you, the dear, old-fashioned summer, such 
as people had before they grew so crazy or so 
poor or wicked as to build prisons with high brick 
walls filled with scorching sun and stifling air and 
foul smells, and call them cities ; before ” — 

“ Why, Gertie, how you talk ! ” exclaimed Mar- 
gery, astonished at her friend’s strange outburst. 


6 


MAJ^GEJ^Y^S VACATION. 


“ If cities are such wicked places, why don’t you 
live in the country ? ” 

“ Oh, if I only could ! ” 

These words were spoken with such pathetic 
earnestness that Margery turned suddenly to look 
at her companion. Tears were standing in Ger- 
trude’s eyes, and her pale face looked drawn and 
old. 

“ O Gertie, Gertie ! what is the matter with 
you ^ I never saw you look that way before ; ” and 
Margery grasped her friend’s hand and looked 
earnestly into her face. 

“ Oh, nothing, Margery ! Don’t mind it, please. 
Only sometimes I get so tired that I think I can 
sympathize with the old negro that mamma tells 
about. You know he said that when he went to 
heaven he did n’t want to sing or carry palm 
branches or anything like that ; but he should 
just ask the Lord to let him go on the shady 
side of heaven and sit down and rest till noon ; 
and then when noon came change to the other 
shady side and rest until night. And because I 
get so tired, I suppose the thought of the 
hammock and the orchard just set me off; 
that’s all. There, now, let us go. Mother will 
need me to get supper, and I am so sorry I let 


THE BEGINNING OF IT, 


7 


you see how nervous and foolish I am. Please 
forget about it ; ” and Gertrude rose hastily from 
the park bench, where the girls had been resting 
and chatting on their way from school. 

“ But you must not go, Gertie, until you tell 
me all about it. It ’s dreadful for a young, pretty 
girl like you to feel that way. I never heard of 
such a thing in all my life. Is it really being 
tired and ill that makes you so pale and slender ? 
Don’t you know I have wished a hundred times 
that I had a delicate white face like yours instead 
of being so red and stout as I am ? I never 
dreamed you were not well. It ’s a shame for a 
healthy girl like me to be planning for a vacation 
in the country and never once thinking what was 
going to become of any one else — not even my 
best and dearest friend. Mj/ vacation, indeed ! 
Why, I was never tired in my life — only when I 
made myself tired racing over the farm and 
through the woods in vacation. No, you shall 
not go until I know just what you expect to do 
this summer while I am in the country.” 

“ There is not much to tell. Of course you 
know we are poor, and mamma and I have had 
the living to make for the family since papa died. 
I ’m not strong enough to do rough work, like 


8 


MARGERY^ S VACATION. 


washing and house-cleaning, you know." Just a 
little shade of sarcasm touched her voice. 

“ I should think not," said Margery under her 
breath, and shrugging her plump shoulders. 

“ Well, as I can’t do heavy work, and sewing 
does n’t pay, I must teach school, mamma says ; 
that ’s about the only decent thing left for me to 
do." 

“ There ’s music and drawing and — and such 
things," said Margery vaguely. 

“Yes, I know; but even if I had any talent for 
them, which I doubt, it costs money to learn 
them ; but the public schools luckily are free. If 
I am to teach them, you see I must at least finish 
the high school, and mother is working herself 
almost to death to let me do it. Sometimes I 
think she won’t hold out until I ’m through, 
though I am hurrying with all my might. You 
know I have made an extra grade in the last two 
years. You have all thought me very vain and 
ambitious, I know, but you did n’t know that I 
was working for mother’s life " — A quick sob 
escaped her, and Margery brushed a sudden tear 
from her own eyes. 

“Of course, then, during vacation I must do 
what I can to make it easier for mother, and, if 


THE BEGINNING OF IT. 


9 


possible, earn a little extra for books and clothes. 
I cannot make dresses, but I can help with the 
plain sewing, do all our housework, and take care 
of the two children. Sometimes I get a child 
or two to care for by the day — children whose 
mothers go out to work, you know. It is n’t much 
I get for it, of course : twenty-five cents a day, 
perhaps — but every little helps.” 

And helps to wear you all out,” interrupted 
Margery impetuously ; “ and if you work as I know 
you do in school, and all vacation still harder, 
you ’ll never live to teach. Oh, how I wish you 
had some of my superfluous strength ! I ’ve not 
the least use in the world for it. It is almost a 
burden to me. Oh, why can’t I give it to you ! 
Things are n’t equal in this world — not a bit.” 

“ That is what the anarchists say,” said Ger- 
trude, smiling drearily ; but I don’t see how 
we are going to help it.” 

Margery mused a moment in silence — a re- 
markable thing for her to do, by the way. Then 
she set her pretty red lips together tightly, and 
nodded her head so emphatically that her fluffy 
yellow curls came tumbling over her eyes. 

“It shall be helped,” she said; “and I am 
going to help it some, anyway.” 


lO 


MAJiGERY^S VACAT/OJY. 


Gertrude smiled again, this time not quite so 
bitterly. “ Thank you, ever so much,” she said, 
“ for your kind intentions ; but I don’t see exactly 
how you will do it. Shall you puncture your 
round white arm and give me to drink of your 
vigorous young blood, in true heroic style, or — 

“ No, indeed, I shall not,” said Margery, laugh- 
ing merrily, “ for I don’t like to be pricked, and 
I don’t believe you are bloodthirsty either. But 
I have a plan in my head that I think will work 
splendidly ; only I must talk it over with mamma 
first. Good-night now, and try to be happy in 
thinking things will be different soon and Mar- 
gery hailed a passing car, and was off before 
Gertrude could reply. 

Mrs. Mayne was engaged with callers when 
Margery came in ; so that she was obliged to 
defer laying her suddenly-conceived plan before 
her mother. She went up to her own room, and 
throwing open a window from which she could 
catch a glimpse of distant hills, just greening 
with the soft tints of a late spring, she sat down 
to think it over. Gertrude’s worn, white face 
tormented her. How stupid she had been not 
to see it before ! It was like a revelation to her, 
as if a door had been suddenly opened, giving her 


THE BEGINNING OF IT. \ l 

a glimpse into a new and strange world — the 
world of suffering and privation, which she knew 
was all around her and yet had never realized. 

Gertrude had said, “ Of course you know we 
are poor.” Yes — she supposed she had known 
it — in a way. But Gertrude’s clothes were so 
unobtrusive and in their simple grace and perfect 
fit suited their wearer so well that she had never 
associated them with poverty : for to her, as to 
many others, shabby clothing was poverty’s chief 
badge. Coarse manners, too, had been to her 
careless mind another seal of indigence. But 
Gertrude’s manners were so gentle and refined 
as to fill her sometimes with envy. Gertrude’s 
home, too, although not in the fashionable quarter 
of the city, was yet far removed from the tene- 
ment region where Margery had someway taken 
for granted that, all poor people lived. It was a 
neighborhood chiefly of mechanics and small 
tradesmen, sober, industrious people who owned 
their own homes or were paying for them grad- 
ually in small sums. These homes were unpre- 
tentious cottages, many of but two or three 
rooms, but, almost without exception, they were 
tidy and well kept, and not a few of the laborers’ 
wives found time to tend a little plot of flowers 


12 


MARGERY^S VACATIOAT. 


or a bit of green grass with a shrub or two on the 
small plat of ground surrounding each house. 
Of course they were at a considerable distance 
from the center of the city, several blocks indeed 
beyond the horse car line. Gertrude lived two 
miles from school, and it now occurred to Mar- 
gery, for the first time, that she had never seen 
her take a car. She always walked, while Mar- 
gery, who had not half the distance to go, almost 
invariably rode. She felt almost ashamed of it 
now. Since Gertrude’s passionate confession of 
weariness, everything about her seemed to show 
in a new light. She resolved to turn over her 
weekly allowance of car tickets to Gertrude the 
very next morning ; that is, if she would have 
them — which, someway, she half doubted. 

A lady passing on the opposite side of the 
street looked up and bowed to Margery just then. 
It was Miss Gail, the president of the Christian 
Endeavor Society to which Margery and her 
brother Harry belonged. This reminded her 
that to-night was their monthly meeting, and she 
had not looked up her topic. Margery was quite 
prone to leave regular duties until the last mo- 
ment. She found her card on which were printed 
the topics for the year, and ran her eye down 


THE BEGINNING OF IT. 


13 


the list until it reached May 10. Self-denial^ 
She smiled when she saw it, and her resolve to 
part with her car tickets, and the plan about 
which she was waiting to consult her mother, 
made her feel quite complacent. She was a 
warm-hearted little body, and she dearly^ loved 
approbation ; even self-approbation was pleasant to 
her. She opened her Bible and found the text for 
the evening : We that are strong ought to bear 
the infirmities of the weak, and not to please our- 
selves.” 

“ Why, how odd,” thought Margery, “ that this 
should be the text ! ” The “ strong and the weak” 
— surely that was herself and Gertrude ; and she 
was going to walk that Gertrude might ride. She 
was going to give up the new pink sateen, and 
if necessary carry her last season’s parasol, that 
Gertrude might go with them into the country — 
if her mother were willing. This was her won- 
derful plan. They were going to grandpa Bur- 
ney’s farm, and Margery well knew that her 
grandmother would give a hearty welcome to any 
friend she chose to bring. There would be no 
expense except for railroad fare, unless, perhaps, 
Gertrude might need some little extras, such as 
sun hat and buckskin gloves for their long rambles 


H 


MARGERY^S VACATION, 


in the woods. Already she was planning in her 
mind the good times they would have together — 
the walks, the rides, the berrying, the orchard 
with its harvest apples. There should be two 
hammocks instead of one — that would take part 
of the price of the sateen. Yes, she should 
have to do without a new parasol, and possibly 
some other article of “ flummery,” as Harry was 
fond of calling her pretty things. She was re- 
solved that this outing for Gertrude should be 
all her own gift, the result of her self-denial ; and 
so her complacency grew. 

She had a few moments with her mother before 
tea, and hastily disclosed her plan. Mrs. Mayne 
had no objections, was pleased indeed with her 
project. 

“But, Margery,” she said, “are you sure that 
Gertrude will go } Even if you can persuade her 
to accept the necessary funds for the trip, where 
will the help for her mother come from ? If 
Gertrude is the brave girl I think her, she will 
not leave her mother to bear the burden alone for 
two long months — no, nor even weeks.” 

“ Yes, I have thought of that. I know she will 
object, but I shall make her see that if she is to 
support her mother by-and-by she must take care 


THE BEGINNING OF IT, 1 5 

of her health now. So it is for her mother’s sake 
she must go.” 

“ Perhaps you can make her see it in that 
light,” said Mrs. Mayne doubtfully, “and no 
doubt her mother will consent. She would make 
any sacrifice for Gertrude. Well, dear, you have 
my permission to try your persuasive powers. No 
doubt Gertrude needs the rest far more than you 
do, my child.” 

A sudden thought flitted through Margery’s 
mind which made her start and look first doubtful, 
then grave. She shook her head. “ No, that 
could not be done,” she said to herself. 

“ What could not be done, Margery } ” 

“ Oh, nothing. Only one of my ‘ wild-goose 
notions,’ as papa calls them, came into my head.” 

Mrs. Mayne questioned her no farther, and 
together they went down to tea. 


CHAPTER II. 


BEARING THE INFIRMITIES OF THE WEAK. 

M argery MAYNE had belonged to the 
Christian Endeavor Society for over a 
year, and three months ago had joined the church. 
Everybody loved Margery — bright, impulsive, 
sunny-faced Margery. Old ladies instinctively 
called her “ my dear.” To the negro woman 
who washed for them she was ‘‘ honey.” Betty, 
the cook, never grumbled when she entered her 
domain, and almost always had a tart or an extra 
slice of cake laid by, with which to tempt her 
schoolgirl appetite. When nurse had her after- 
noon out, it was Margery who washed and combed 
the children, extracted the slivers, kissed the 
bumps, bound up the cuts, and otherwise minis- 
tered to their numberless necessities in such a 
cheery fashion that Ted and Dot looked upon 
these afternoons as holidays scarcely outranked 
by Fourth of July and Thanksgiving. Sweet- 
tempered by inheritance and no less so by culti- 
vation, growing up in the healthful atmosphere of 
16 


BEARING INFIRMITIES. 


17 


a home of plenty and tender Christian care, her 
sixteen years of life had been like one long, 
sunshiny morning. 

When a company of young people from the 
Society of Christian Endeavor presented them- 
selves for church membership, Margery went with 
them and entered into her church relations as 
easily and naturally as she had gone from her crib 
to the nursery bedroom, and from the nursery bed- 
room to her pretty chamber upstairs. Was Mar- 
gery a Christian, you say } Certainly she was. 
From the time when she murmured her first 
“ Now I lay me,” through the period of “ Our 
Father,” accompanied by her first personal peti- 
tions, she had never known a doubt of God’s love 
and care, or of the allegiance she owed to his 
commands. As soon would she doubt her mother 
or question her right to direct the steps of her 
children. Yes, she was a Christian, only as yet 
she belonged to the reserve corps, having never 
entered into active combat with evil powers — 
having never indeed been brought face to face 
with any formidable foe. To-night as she and 
Harry walked toward the chapel where the 
Endeavor Society met, she was unusually silent. 
The “ wild-goose notion ” which she had tried to 


1 8 MARGERY'S VACATION. 

dismiss so peremptorily would not accept dis- 
missal, and clung so persistently to her thoughts 
that it became fairly annoying. This notion had 
been born of her mother’s words : “ No doubt 
Gertrude needs the rest far more than you do, my 
child.” 

As they entered the room. Miss Gail was read- 
ing the opening hymn : — 

“I gave my life for thee: 

What hast thou done for me ? ” 

It was one of Margery’s favorite hymns. Pos- 
sibly it was the music that had impressed her, for 
she suddenly became aware that until now the 
words had held no especial significance for her. 
But now, long after the singing ceased, the 
refrain, 

“What hast thou done for me?” 
echoed and reechoed in her thoughts — just the 
bare words, shorn of the glamour of melody which 
it seemed until now had kept them from her heart. 
And this passage from her morning chapter 
seemed to accompany the refrain : “ Inasmuch as 
ye did it unto one of these my brethren, even 
these least, ye did it unto me.” 

After the singing, each member repeated a 
Scripture text having reference to the subject of 


BEARING INFIRMITIES. 


19 


the evening. So absorbed was Margery with her 
own thoughts that she started perceptibly when 
Harry repeated his text and she became suddenly 
aware that her turn came next. 

“Let no man seek his own, but each his neigh- • 
hour’s good,” repeated Harry. There was a pause, 
and Margery tried vainly to recall the verse she 
had prepared. They were waiting for her, and 
she repeated hastily the passage that was just 
now occupying her mind : “ Inasmuch as ye did it 
unto one of these my brethren, even these least, 
ye did it unto me.” 

Miss Gail smiled. “A beautiful complement 
of your brother’s verse,” she said. 

So it was, but Margery had not thought of it. 
And now Miss Gail repeated her own text : — 

“ And he said unto all. If any man would come 
after me, let him deny himself, and take up his 
cross daily, and follow me.” 

“ Many persons,” she said, “ seem to believe 
that they have fulfilled the command to seek the 
good of others when they have bestowed upon 
them merely the overflow of their own abundant 
blessings, the overflow of their purses, the over- 
flow of their time and strength — the overflow of 
their sympathy. I wonder if there are any here 


20 


MARGERY’S VACATION. 


to-night who have perhaps seldom, if ever, really 
given to a weaker brother that which cost them 
real self-denial. The subject of denying one’s 
self for others embraces that of charity, or Chris- 
tian love. To give what costs us nothing has in 
it but a feeble element of charity.” 

Margery thought dubiously of her car tickets, 
the sateen dress, and the last year’s parasol. 
She knew she did not mind walking in the least, 
that she had an abundance of dresses and that 
her parasol was not at all shabby — she only 
wanted a change and to have it suit the new 
dress. And now for the first time she seemed to 
recognize the fact that the pleasure of Gertrude’s 
company on the farm would far outweigh the 
little ounce of self-denial which her plans might 
contain. 

Alone in her room that night, Margery had 
perhaps her first real combat with self : her first 
awakening to the fact that following Christ must 
consist of active well-doing, as well as passive 
abstinence from wrong. It was with her as when 
a ray of warm sunlight pierces the earth and says 
to an imbedded seed, “ Arouse from your sleep. 
The time of the year has come when you should 
start and hasten to fruitage.” And like a fruitful 


BEARING INFIRMITIES, 


21 


seed her heart yielded obedience to the call of 
the Master and began to warm and expand be- 
neath his touch, until, under his loving guidance, 
appeared the fruit of which this story seeks to 
tell. 


CHAPTER III. 


THE “ WILD-GOOSE NOTION.” 

AMMA,” said Margery, next morning, “I 



want to talk with you a little while before 
school. It is about Gertie.” 

“ Very well, dear ; let us go to my room, where 
we shall be undisturbed.” 

“You know, mamma,” began Margery, drawing 
up a hassock and folding her hands upon her 
mother’s lap, — a favorite attitude when she had 
some especial confidence to give, — “ that I told 
you last night I had a ‘ wild-goose notion ’ in my 
head. Well, someway I could not get rid of it, 
and I have decided, if you will help me, to try to 
tame it into a useful idea.” 

“ Well, dear, let us have it,” said Mrs. Mayne, 
passing her hand encouragingly over Margery’s 
half-bowed head ; for she knew that, in spite of her 
jesting tone, her daughter was unusually serious. 

“ It is this, mamma. You put it into my mind 
when you said Gertie needed rest much more 
than I, — of course any one knows that, — and 


THE WILD-GOOSE NOTION: 


23 


this was the notioh : Why can’t I take Gertrude’s 
place and do her work and let her have my 
vacation ? ” 

For a moment Mrs. Mayne did not answer. 
It was such a novel proposition that she felt 
tempted to tell Margery that she was right in 
calling it a wild notion, and doubted their being 
able to tame ” it. But Margery seemed so much 
in earnest that she di^iked to dampen her ardor 
by an unconsidered objection ; so she parleyed a 
little. 

“ Possibly you could, dear ; but could and should 
are often different things, you know. Do you 
really wish to do it ” 

Yes, mamma, I think I do — that is, if I could 
and should ; and that is what I want you to decide 
for me.” 

“Or, better still, help you to decide. Well, 
then, let us consider the * couldsl The consent 
of Gertrude and her mother — would that belong 
here .? ” 

“ I should think so,” said Margery, laughing. 
Someway the fact that her mother was willing 
to consider her plan took the first load off her 
mind. “ If they did not consent, I certainly 
couldn’t do it.” 


24 


MARGERY'S VACATION, 


“Very well, then: ‘Could’ No. i must be de- 
ferred until they are consulted. Next in order 
I should think would be, ‘ Could ’ you take Ger- 
trude’s place.? Have you experience enough.? 
What are her duties .? Do you know .? ” 

Margery enumerated them as Gertrude had done 
to her. Her mother looked doubtful. 

“ A good deal of responsibility for young and 
untried shoulders, I fear.” 

“ I could try it, anyway. I know some house- 
work, and a good deal of sewing and mending, 
and I get along nicely with children, don’t I .? ” 

“With your own brothers and sisters — yes. 
With others you do not know ; you have never ^ 
tried.” 

“ I should try to think they were my own 
brothers.” 

The answer was so quietly and firmly given 
that Mrs. Mayne looked inquiringly into her 
daughter’s upturned face. It wore a look of reso- 
lute purpose which she had never seen there 
before. It was a look to be respected, and she 
mentally resolved to give Margery’s plan the most 
favorable consideration possible. 

“You have thought about this a good deal, 
my child .? ” 


THE WILD-GOOSE NOTIONS 25 

‘‘Yes, mamma; nearly all night. I could 
scarcely sleep for thinking of it. I think I know 
pretty well what Gertrude’s work is, and I want 
very much to try it. I am strong and well ; it 
could not hurt me, and if I did get a little home- 
sick now and then, why, I suppose other girls have 
lived through that, and why couldn’t I ” 

“ Bravely said, my daughter ; I see you have 
considered both sides. But I must have time to 
think it over. It is such a very unusual thing 
to do that if done at all it must be well con- 
sidered. Of this, however, you may be sure : if 
this plan of yours is, as I think, born of a real 
desire to minister in His name, it shall have 
mother’s heartiest sympathy, and if possible her 
consent.” 

“ I think that is why I want to do it,” said 
Margery, speaking low and her face flushing a 
little. 

“ Very well, then. I will tell you this evening 
what I think of it. Run now and dress for 
school, and don’t forget that the Master will 
accept the will to do, even if your scheme should 
turn out impracticable.” 

If Margery had passed through a conflict with 
self the previous night, it was her mother who 


26 


MARGERY'S FACAT/OM 


entered into one now. This wild-goose notion ” 
was certainly out of the beaten track of chari- 
table work, and she wondered if Margery had 
really considered all that it involved. She had 
considered the separation from home, but did 
she realize what the change would be from a 
home of luxury to one of poverty.^ — for real 
poverty it was, Mrs. Mayne knew, no matter how 
respectable. Then, too, she had been accustomed 
to taking all her little trials and perplexities to 
a Christian mother for counsel, and Mrs. Morgan, 
Gertrude’s mother, was not a Christian. She was 
an invalid, somewhat embittered by adversity, as 
people who have no hope beyond this life are 
almost sure to be. She was a lady by birth and 
education, but even a lady, destitute of the sweet- 
ening influence of grace, may, under the power 
of poverty and disease, become fretful and melan- 
choly, and be anything but a cheerful companion 
for a bright young girl. 

Mrs. Mayne had known Gertrude’s mother for 
many years. They had been schoolmates to- 
gether. She remembered her now as a hand- 
some, brilliant girl, the leader of her class 
socially as well as intellectually. She had 
married, quite young, a man of wealth and posi- 


THE WILD-GOOSE NOTION: 


27 


tion. Reverses had come. Her husband lost 
both property and health together, and three 
years ago had died, leaving her with three chil- 
dren, of whom Gertrude was the eldest. She 
was then thirteen, and the two boys, Walter and 
Fred, aged respectively five and two. When 
the business was settled there remained barely 
enough to purchase and scantily furnish the 
little four-room cottage in which they now lived. 
Having done this, proud-spirited, delicately-nur- 
tured Mrs. Morgan entered single-handed into 
the struggle for food and clothing and all the 
daily necessities for a family of four. Her health, 
already impaired by long nursing and the anxiety 
attendant upon her husband’s long illness, rapidly 
gave way under the strain — until the constant 
cough, the languid step, the bright flush upon 
her cheek, told all too surely the nature of her 
malady. No wonder then that Gertrude had said 
she was working for her mother’s life. Day and 
night she planned for the coming time when she 
should be mistress of a village school, where her 
mother could rest and breathe the pure country 
air. Often and often, in fancy, she saw the little 
white cottage among the trees and her mother 
sitting among the flowers in the sunshine, with 


28 


MARGERY^S VACATION. 


hands folded idly in her lap. So intense had 
become this longing to see her rest that her 
fancy could not tolerate the thought of even the 
lightest task. 

Gertrude was like her mother ; the same spirit 
and pride, but softened a little, perhaps, by the 
milder and more imaginative temperament of her 
father. Tall, pale, and slender, an unnatural 
brilliancy of eye, a forced energy of mind, yet — 
as she had so passionately averred to Margery in 
her unguarded burst of feeling — “tired all the 
time.” “Yes, she did indeed need rest,” Mrs. 
Mayne said to herself, with a grave shake of 
her head. And yet how could she let Margery 
go } So hard is it for the human mother to push 
the fledgeling from the nest. But hers was a 
real mother heart, and it reached beyond her own 
immediate brood and took in Gertrude — poor, 
weary, brave-hearted Gertrude. It was not only 
a mother heart — it was a heart given to the 
Master, and ever ready to listen to his voice. 
That voice now spoke to it the very words that 
had urged Margery out of her peaceful indiffer- 
ence : “Ye then that are strong” — 

Clearly, as if illumined by a light from above, 
there stood out before Mrs. Mayne two golden 


THE WILD-GOOSE NOTION; 


29 


opportunities for aiding the weak. First, to 
uphold Margery in her first real, active Christian 
service ; and, second, to lead Gertrude to the 
service of Him whom she and Margery loved and 
served. In the close relation which she should 
sustain to Gertrude, if she came to them in her 
daughter’s stead, what a grand opportunity to 
lead her to Christ ! And who needed him for a 
friend more than she } That thought settled it, 
and when Margery came home in the afternoon 
she was rejoiced to receive her mother’s hearty 
approval and permission to carry out her plan if 
possible. 

At the next morning recess she drew Gertrude 
into a retired corner to communicate the impor- 
tant news. 

“ I told you things were to be different with 
you, Gertie,” she said, “ and mother says my plan 
may work — only I changed it a good deal after 
I first made it ; but that ’s no matter. Well, 
mother says it may work if I can get your con- 
sent, and she is going this afternoon to persuade 
your mother to let me do it, and I am going home 
with you after school, and mother will be there 
and we will talk it over all together. You shall 
have your hammock, and I shall have no end of 


30 


MARGEJ^Y'S VACATION, 


fun trying to keep house and play nurse ; and you 
will do it, won’t you, Gertie ? ” 

Margery paused, out of breath. That was the 
way she usually jumped right into the middle of 
anything she had to tell. Gertrude opened her 
brown eyes wider than usual and fixed them 
wonderingly on Margery’s eager face. 

“Will I do what, Margie.? ‘Please elucidate,’ 
as Professor Proper says.” 

A little bubbling laugh burst from Margery’s 
lips and rippled over her round, dimpled face. 

“ What a goose I am ! ” she said. “ I have not 
told you a single thing about it, and here I am 
talking as though you had known it all along ; 
but that ’s just like me. Mother says I always 
expect her to know what is in my mind by 
intuition — I think that is what she calls it. I 
do wish people would n’t use so many big words. 
It keeps me half my time on the way to the 
dictionary, for mother insists that I look them up 
myself ; she says I shall remember them better 
if I do ” — 

“ Margery,” interrupted Gertrude, speaking with 
mock solemnity, “do you mean to kill me with 
suspense .? ” 

“NO; indeed, you dear old girl! I don’t mean 


THE ^^WILD-GOOSE NOTIONS 3 I 

to kill you at all, but only to make you live a 
good deal longer than you will if I don’t help you. 
Listen, now ; this is my plan, and don’t you dare 
object ! You remember I told you we were going 
to grandpa Burney’s for two months, mamma and 
the children and I ? Well, instead of its being 
mamma and the children and /, it is to be mamma 
and the children and you ” — 

“ But, Margie, I cannot possibly ” — 

“Don’t interrupt me, please,” putting her hand 
playfully upon Gertrude’s mouth. “I know just 
what you are going to say — that you cannot leave 
your mother — and we ’ve planned for that. So, 
as I was saying, you are to go into the country 
with mamma and the children, and I am going to 
stay with your mother and help her in your place. 
There, now, won’t that be the jolliest fun you 
ever had ? It will be for me, anyway. I ’m crazy 
to learn to cook and keep house, and I do so 
much want a chance to work off this unneces- 
sary flesh ! Of course I don’t know how as well 
as you do, but I can easily learn ; and I ’ve got 
one advantage over you, anyway — I’m strong 
and never was sick a day in my life, only when I 
had measles and whooping cough, and then nurse 
gould hardly keep me in the house. Just you 


32 


MARGERY'S VACATION, 


trust your mother to me, Gertie, and see if I let 
her get tired out.” 

While Margery had been rushing on in this 
headlong fashion, Gertrude had stood motionless, 
surprise, pleasure, gratitude, and doubt contend- 
ing for the mastery of her features. Doubt had 
the ascendency, and when Margery finally paused 
to see how Gertrude took it, she saw her friend 
looking at her with sober incredulity. Her coun- 
tenance fell. 

“ Well, what do you think of it, Gertie 1 Don’t 
you like it ” 

“What do I think of it } I think it is just like 
your sweet, generous little self, Margery, to plan 
it ; but it is a very queer thing for us to do, and 
I don’t believe it would be best.” 

“ Some queer things are right things,” said 
Margery decisively ; “ but there is the bell, and we 
must go in. We ’ll settle it all right when I go 
home with you to-night.” 

And so they did. No need to weary the “ gen- 
tle reader ” with all the long discussion that took 
place in Mrs. Morgan’s plain little sitting room. 
No need to tell of all the lions that she and Ger- 
trude saw in the way. Suffice it to say that they 
were slain one by one with a tact that was Mrs. 


THE WILD-GOOSE NOTION: 


33 


Mayne’s own God-given gift, and that in the 
gathering twilight she and Margery walked quietly 
home, saying little to each other, but each busy 
with her own thoughts, and the feeling of a new 
tie between them — undefined perhaps, but no 
less real — the tie that unites “laborers together 
with God.” 

“ What do you think of it, Gertrude ? ” said 
Mrs. Morgan, as the door closed upon their 
guests and they turned back into the gathering 
shadows of their little room. 

“I think, mamma,” said Gertrude slowly, “that 
Mrs. Mayne and Margery are the two oddest and 
best people that I know ; I cannot decide which 
is the queerer — Margery for thinking of it, or 
her mother for letting her do it. And I also 
think that if I don’t try my best to make things 
pleasant for Mrs. Mayne, and save up quantities 
of strength for next year, I shall be the most 
ungrateful girl alive. I am afraid, too, that in 
spite of her enthusiasm Margie will find she has 
undertaken more than she imagines.” 

“ I shall try to make it as easy for her as pos- 
sible.” 

“ I know you will, mamma, and that is why I 
fear it will be too hard for you. No one can 


34 


MAUGEHY’S VACATION, 


know as I do just what needs to be done for 
you. I cannot make it seem — in spite of their 
kindness — that I ought to go.” 

But I really wish you to go, Gertrude, and I 
am sure, for my sake, you will do it, and try to be 
as happy as possible. If you worry, you will not 
rest.” 

And so all parties considered the affair settled. 


CHAPTER IV. 


AN UNEXPECTED TURN OF AFFAIRS. 

T3UT three weeks now remained until the 
^ school vacation. Both girls had been so 
absorbed in examinations and preparations for 
what to each promised to be the most unique 
experience of her life that they had seen little 
of each other. Occasional humorous references, 
on Margery’s part, to what she proposed doing 
when she was Gertrude and Gertrude was she, 
showed that she had no notion of withdrawing 
from the compact, and Gertrude took comfort 
amid all her misgivings in the thought that Mar- 
gery seemed so happy in her plan. If Margery 
had really any misgivings in regard to her scheme, 
any regrets for what she had promised to do, they 
vanished entirely when she saw how the first 
approach of summer heat told on Gertrude’s 
strength. No doubt, since she had fallen to 
watching so closely, she magnified the evil in her 
own mind ; but it was certainly true that Ger- 
trude’s step became more and more languid, and 


3 ^ 


MARGERY'S VACATION. 


lately she had noted a feverish flush on her cheek 
during the last few hours in the schoolroom, and 
had thought her hands felt hot and dry when occa- 
sionally she had touched them. One morning, 
too, Gertrude had come in rather late, flushed 
from rapid walking, and on taking her seat had 
been seized with such a violent fit of coughing 
that Margery was thoroughly alarmed. 

The offer of her car tickets had not yet been 
made. Someway she feared to offend Gertrude ; 
but she herself had taken to walking, so that she 
had accumulated quite a little store. It was one 
of Dr. Mayne's odd notions to buy a certain quan- 
tity at once, and distribute them regularly to the 
family, never omitting the servants. To them it 
was his only gift. He did not believe much in 
gifts. He was wont to say that people who 
lavished presents most freely on their servants 
did so to eke out scanty wages. Margery took 
her tickets and said nothing, secretly hoping that 
the way might open for her to offer them to 
Gertrude. She resolved now to make her accept 
them at all hazards. 

“See here, Gertie,” she said after school that 
night, taking out of her pocket a generous packet 
of fares, “ see how these have accumulated on my 


AN- UNEXPECTED TURN OF AFEAIRR, 37 

hands. Papa insists on giving me a certain num- 
ber every week, and since this lovely spring 
weather has come on I have really preferred walk- 
ing to riding. You have such a long distance to 
walk, and you would really do me a favor to take 
them off my hands. I am afraid I shall lose 
them if you don’t.” 

Offered in this way, Gertrude could do no less 
than accept them as a lady should. 

“Thank you so much, Margie,” she said, smil- 
ing ; “ since I have owned to being so tired I may 
as well tell you frankly that I shall take a lazy 
delight in riding these out for you.” 

That was all she said, but her eyes looked much 
more and she kissed her friend good-night, a very 
unusual thing for her to do. She was not a 
demonstrative girl. Margery went home happier 
that night than she had been for many a day, and 
after that hoarded her tickets as if they had been 
so much gold. And now she fell to not only 
watching Gertrude’s face, but listening for her 
cough. No doctor could scrutinize a patient with 
more anxiety. And she noticed that the slightest 
exertion brought it on — not often in such parox- 
ysms as she had first noticed, but an obstinate 
little hacking that jarred on her alert ears. Since 


38 


MARGERY’S VACATION. 


she had noticed this, time seemed to drag wonder- 
fully. It seemed to her that vacation would never 
come, and she feared Gertrude would be seri- 
ously ill before the longed-for time arrived. She 
resolved to speak to her father about it that very 
night, and see if something ought not to be done 
for her. When she entered the family sitting 
room, her father and mother and brother were in 
earnest talk on some subject of interest ; but so 
absorbed was Margery in her own thoughts that, 
in her characteristic fashion, she plunged at once 
into her own subject. 

“ Papa,” she said, “ I am so worried about 
Gertie. She coughs dreadfully, and looks so pale 
every morning and so flushed every night that 
I am afraid she . is really ill. I thought perhaps 
something ought to be done.” 

Dr. Mayne frowned. 

“Yes, something ought to be done. I hap- 
pened to be in the horse car with her the other 
day, and I noticed that a few steps that she had 
to run to catch the car set her to coughing quite 
violently and I did not like the sound of it either. 
I asked her how long she had been coughing that 
way, and she answered hastily that it was only 
a little cold ; and of course, as there were other 


AN UNEXPECTED TURN OF AFFAIRS. 


passengers in the car, I could not press the sub- 
ject. I was glad, however, that they had the good 
sense to spend a little money on car fares. So 
few poor people are willing to see any economy 
in saving strength. They would rather pay out 
their money in doctor’s bills and bad medicine.” 

Margery flushed and smiled, but said nothing. 

“That plan of yours to give her a little run 
into the country,” continued the doctor, “would 
have been just the thing for her, and I am very 
sorry, daughter, that anything should happen to 
break it up.” 

“To break it up ! ” cried Margery aghast. 
“ Surely, papa, nothing must do that ! Why, I 
am just counting the days, and hoping she will 
live till school is out ! ” 

“ Extravagant in speech as ever, Margery,” 
said Dr. Mayne, smiling in spite of his troubled 
face. “ No, Gertrude is not so bad as that. Still 
she does need a change very seriously. But we 
were discussing a change in our plans for the 
summer when you came in. We have decided to 
take the long-planned trip to the Rocky Moun- 
tains. We shall be off for Colorado in three or 
four weeks at the longest.” 

“ To Colorado ! ” cried Margery excitedly. 


40 


MARGERY^ S VACATION. 


“ Why, is n’t that the very thing for her ? Is 
not Colorado the place where people take all 
their coughs and hemorrhages and such things ?” 

“Yes, to be sure, child ; but how is Gertrude 
to go ? It is a long way off and the trip an 
expensive one. I am truly sorry to disappoint 
Gertrude and her mother, but they must take 
the will for the deed this time, and, under the 
circumstances, they cannot blame you. It is not 
your fault that we see fit to carry you off to 
Colorado this summer.” 

“ But I don’t see, papa, how going to Colorado 
makes any difference. If Gertie and I are to 
exchange places this summer, it certainly won’t 
cost any more to take her than it will me. And 
just think what a lovely trip for her ! ” 

“ Was ever a clearer case of monomania than 
this } ” said Dr. Mayne, laughing. “ The child is 
so thoroughly imbued with the idea of Gertrude 
that she is deaf to all else, and even the wonders 
of the Rockies have lost their charms for her. 
Don’t you see, my child, that this change in our 
plans puts a very different light on the subject V' 

“Don’t you see, dear,” interposed Mrs. Mayne, 
speaking now for the first time, “ that we could 
not go to Colorado without you ? ” 


AN UNEXPECTED TURN OF AFFAIRS. 


“ No, mamma, I don’t see it,” said Margery 
stoutly. “ If you can go to grandma Burney’s 
without me, you can go to Colorado without me; 
and if I can take Gertrude’s place for two months 
while she is on the farm, I can do it while she is 
two months in Colorado.” 

Come, come. Kit ! ” exclaimed Harry, pulling 
mischievously at her nearest curl, “ I say that is 
carrying things too far. Of course self-denial ’s 
a very good thing and all that, and ‘sweet charity’ 
in moderate doses is invigorating to the moral 
constitution ; but when it comes to going such 
lengths as you suggest — why, of course you don’t 
expect us to believe you are in earnest.” 

“ But I am in earnest,” said Margery, flushing, 
“and I wish you would not make fun of me. 
And if you loved Gertrude half as well as I do, 
you would be in earnest too.” 

“ Maybe I do,” said Harry mockingly, “ only 
I ’ve a different way of showing it.” 

Mrs. Mayne had said of Margery when she was 
a small child that she was usually very yielding, 
with the acquiescence born of indifference ; but 
that when an idea really took possession of her, 
her tenacity to it was something remarkable. It 
was plain that the idea of substituting for Ger- 


42 


MARGERY'S VACATION. 


trude now thoroughly possessed her and her reso- 
lution would not be easily shaken. Nor did she 
feel really certain that it ought to be shaken. 
She must have time to think. So again she 
parleyed with the issue. 

“Never mind, Margery,” she said; “your plan 
shall not be given up till we have reconsidered 
it in the light of our new arrangement. But it 
may be that Mrs. Morgan and Gertrude would 
not consent to her going so far away, even if we 
were willing to spare you, and you were willing 
to stay.” 

“ I hope they will be willing, mamma. We will 
see them about it to-morrow, and I am sure I 
shall be willing to stay if you will let me.” 

Half an hour later, alone in her own room, she 
did not feel quite so sure of her willingness to 
stay. She would not have been a natural girl if 
the thought of the tour to the Rockies held no 
temptation for her. But love for Gertrude and 
desire to do good, fortified no doubt by that 
natural tenacity of which her mother was aware, 
won the day. She did not confide her waverings 
even to her mother, and having once more settled 
it in her own mind, her natural buoyancy of spirit 
asserted itself, and she longed only for the time 


AN UNEXPECTED TURN OF AFFAIRS. 43 

to come when she could see the travelers on 
their way and settle down to the novel routine of 
a poor widow’s daughter. Of course you know 
she had her way or this story would never have 
been written. Gertrude’s cough carried the day, 
against all opposition, with her mother, and even 
Dr. Mayne felt proud of his daughter and rather 
glad of her decision. 

** I ’ll show you. Kit,” whispered Harry mis- 
chievously in her ear, as, with Gertrude’s shawl 
strap in his hand, he kissed his sister good-by and 
stepped aboard the west-bound train. “ I ’ll show 
you whether I love Gertrude as well as you do or 
not ; but you ’re a brick, Margie, if I do say it.” 

With waving of hands and brave attempts at 
smiling from all the party within, the train moved 
slowly out, and Margery stood alone on the plat- 
form, alone in a crowd of people bent each upon 
his own plans and regardless of his neighbor. 
So at least it seemed to her as she elbowed her 
way to the hack stand and, seating herself in the 
nearest vacant one, gave the driver Mrs. Morgan’s 
street and number, and was driven rapidly out to 
begin her strange vacation. 

For a moment the loneliness of it nearly over- 


44 


MARGERY’S VACATION. 


whelmed her, and it was with difficulty that she 
fought back her tears. The thought of Gertrude’s 
mother helped her. It would never do, she said, 
to let her think she regretted what she had done. 
So she made a brave effort to look on the bright 
side of it, and by the time the hack stopped at the 
cottage door she wore her brightest smile and ran 
gayly up the steps and into the room where Mrs. 
Morgan sat, trying to sew and be unconcerned. 

Stepping in front of her chair, Margery made 
a little mock courtesy, and with an “At your 
service, ma’am ! ” began drawing off her gloves 
with an air of being quite at home. Mrs. Mor- 
gan smiled faintly, and saying, “ I hope it will not 
be dull for you here, Margery,” motioned her to 
a chair by her side ; and the two were soon 
engaged in earnest talk about the travelers. 

Mrs. Mayne had wanted Margery to take leave 
of them at her own home and go directly to Mrs. 
Morgan’s without seeing them off. But Margery 
had insisted on accompanying them to the depot. 

“ If I leave you here,” she said, “ I shall feel 
all the time as though I had only to walk home 
to see you — and I should be twice as homesick 
as I shall to see the cars carry you away. For 
then I shall feel you are gone and know there is 
no help for it. “ 


AN UNEXPECTED TURN OF AFFAIRS, 45 

Margery’s real farewell to mother had been in 
her own room the night before, where Mrs. Mayne 
had come after she was in bed, and sitting by her 
side in the moonlight, holding Margery’s hand in 
hers, they had talked far into the night. When 
at last she kissed her good-night, Mrs. Mayne 
slipped a packet of cards in her hand. 

“ They are texts for you, my darling ; one for 
each day while I am gone. I wrote them out in 
my own hand because I thought you would like 
them better so.” 

Margery had slipped them under her pillow and 
gone quietly to sleep, sober and yet happy. On 
the morning of her first day at Mrs. Morgan’s she 
would read the first one. 


CHAPTER V. 


THE FIRST DAY AT MRS. MORGAN’S. 

T WISH Gertie was here to sew this button on 
my waist and find me another pair of stock- 
ings. This one has a great hole in the knee, and 
mamma ’ll scold like everything if I put it on so. 
Oh, dear! I should think there was everything 
in this drawer but stockings. I ’m going to ask 
mamma to come and help.” 

“No, indeed, you don’t, Fred; mamma’s busy 
getting breakfast, and I heard her say this morn- 
ing that Mrs. Hall’s dress must be done to-day 
‘whether or no.’ Those were her very words. 
She has to have the money to pay the coal man 
when he comes in the morning, or he won’t unload 
the coal. She looks just about sick this morning, 
too — and she told me to hurry up and come and 
help her.” 

“ Well, why don’t you hurry, then, and stop talk- 
ing cross to me } You ’ve only got on one stock- 
ing, and you got up first, too. I ’ll beat you yet 
if I can only find some stockings. I don’t see 


THE FIRST DAY AT MRS, MORGAN^ S. 47 

what Gertie wanted to go off for anyway. I don’t 
b’lieve that stuck-up rich girl ’ll help mamma 
very much. Bob Stark says she only just wants 
to come prying around to see how we live, and 
show off her fine clothes ; and Maggie Dart said : 
‘A heap of work she ’d do with them white hands, 
all tricked out with rings.’ ” 

“Well, one thing’s sure: we’ve just got to 
rustle for ourselves mornings, for of course Miss 
Margery won’t get up early as we do. Gertie 
said we must n’t expect that, because she was n’t 
used to it ; and we are big enough to dress our- 
selves anyway — and we must try to make it easy 
for her and be good boys. Oh, dear ! I get so 
tired of being told to ‘ be good boys,’ don’t you, 
Fred } I wish there was n’t any such thing as 
a ‘ good boy ’ in the whole world, and then I 
should n’t have to try to be one.” 

“ So do I, Walter. Oh, me! I just ca7it 
get any stockings, and I want to beat you 
dressing.” 

“Well, I know one thing you can do — you can 
make a big mess of that drawer. Just look at it 
now ! See how you ’ve tumbled things all out 
on the floor. You ’ll catch it when mamma comes 
in, won’t you now } ” 


48 


MARGERY'S YACAT/OJY. 


“ I don’t care. Gertie says you ’re a poke, and 
you have n’t got your other stocking on yet. 

‘Deedle, deedle dumpling, my son John — 

One stocking off and one stocking on ! ’ ” 

“ Hush up ! ” 

“ Boys ! ” The voice that spoke from the 
kitchen was not exactly cross, not exactly stern, 
not exactly querulous, but a mixture of all three. 
It was a burdened, discouraged voice. 

Boys it called again, this time louder. 

“ Ma’am } ” responded Walter. 

“ Mem } ” echoed Fred. 

“ Do stop quarreling and dress yourselves 
quickly. At this rate I shall not get to sewing 
before nine o’clock, and I must finish that dress 
to-day.” 

This was the conversation that Margery dis- 
tinctly heard as she stood in her little bedroom on 
that first morning, hurrying on her clothes. She 
had been awakened from a sound sleep by what 
seemed to her half-aroused senses a sound of muf- 
fled thunder, but proved in reality to be only Walter 
and Fred tumbling out of bed and chasing each 
other barefooted over the sitting room floor. As 
nearly always happens when one wakes for the 


the first day at MRS. MORGAN^ S. 49 

first time in a strange place, it had taken her 
some minutes to realize where she was. Then 
she felt such a strange stupor upon her that she 
was about to turn over for another nap when the 
sound of voices arrested her, and presently she 
heard her own name in the conversation just 
related. Hearing the boys wish for Gertie roused 
her suddenly to a sense of her new duties, and 
she sprang hastily out of bed, resolved to dispatch 
her toilet as quickly as possible. On the foot of 
her bed lay the dressing gown which she had 
mechanically placed there on retiring. She had 
been accustomed to put it over her night clothes 
when she ran across the hall to the bathroom for 
her morning bath. She took it up hastily now, 
and then laid it as quickly down, with a comic 
gesture of dismay. There was no bathroom to 
go to ! What was she to do, then ? How get her 
bath She looked around the room — not far to 
look, certainly. The room was eight feet by ten. 
There was just barely space for the bedstead and 
a small stand on which stood the kerosene lamp, 
a pincushion, a little china matchbox, a brush 
and comb, and Margery’s Bible, which she had 
laid there on finishing her chapter before retiring 
the night before; together with her trunk, which 


50 


MARGERY'S VACATION, 


Stood in the corner opposite the stand, and occu- 
pied much more space, and, almost wedged in 
between the two, a low wooden chair cushioned 
with chintz. Margery did not know how much 
time and thought Gertrude had expended on this 
room to make it comfortable for her. She did 
not know that Gertrude had worked late evenings 
at crocheting to earn money to buy the cheap 
cotton ingrain which covered the floor; that she 
had borrowed a saw from one of her carpenter 
neighbors and herself sawed the legs off a high 
wooden chair to make it low enough for Margery, 
and then added the bright chintz cushion tied on 
with the only red ribbons she possessed ; that she 
had humbled her pride and bought cheap cotton 
instead of lisle for her traveling gloves that she 
might purchase the fresh scrim curtain for the 
one window of the room ; that for the fresh cal- 
cimine overhead and the pretty, cheap paper on 
the walls she had promised to crochet for her 
neighbor, the paper hanger’s wife, yards and 
yards of a certain fine lace she coveted, while 
she was away on her travels. She did not know 
how, with weary hands and aching back, she had 
herself washed the window and scrubbed the 
paint, tacked down the carpet, and placed the 


THE FIRST DAY AT MRS. MORGAN^ S. 5 I 

scanty furniture, in odd moments of time she 
could snatch from school and home duties. If 
she had known I think the little room would 
have looked to Margery that morning like a fairy 
palace instead of the pitiful, plain thing that it 
really was. No; she did not know. She only 
thought she was occupying Gertrude’s room just 
as she had left it, and that it was like Gertrude 
to keep it so neat and clean. 

But what to do about the bath ? The door 
into the sitting room was just opposite the bed 
with a space between barely large enough to 
stand and dress. By the head of the bed, how- 
ever, was another small door evidently opening 
into some sort of closet. 

Perhaps here were the desired accommodations 
for toilet. Margery timidly opened the door — 
just a tiny little closet, scarcely large enough to 
turn around in, with empty hooks awaiting her 
clothes. There was no help for it — she must do 
without her bath this morning; and oh! how 
she wanted it I for, almost unheard-of thing to 
Margery, her head ached and she felt tired and 
languid. She longed for the cool water, and 
wondered what ailed her. Accustomed to her 
large, airy chamber, with its modern ventilators. 


52 


MARGERY'S VACATION. 


she did not know what effect it would have on 
her to sleep in an eight-by-ten low-ceiled room, 
with door and window closed, on a warm June 
night. No wonder her head ached. She began 
putting on her clothes in no enviable frame of 
mind, which frame of mind was not particularly 
improved by the unkind comments of Gertrude’s 
brothers and their neighbors, the plain-spoken 
Bob Stark and Maggie Dart : “ Stuck-up rich 
girl ! ” Show off her fine clothes ! ” “ White 

hands tricked out with rings ! ” Each one of 
these phrases stung like a nettle. This, then, 
was the sort of thanks she had to expect from 
these rude boys. For a moment she felt resent- 
ful, and almost resolved to put on the prettiest 
dress she had, just for spite ; but just then she 
saw the little packet of text-cards lying unopened 
on the stand. These spoke to her of her 
mother, and the tears sprang quickly to her eyes 
as she drew her plainest brown gingham from her 
trunk and hastily put it on. Mother had told her 
not to be discouraged, even if sometimes she did 
not seem to be appreciated. 

Now came Mrs. Morgan’s tired voice. Mar- 
gery’s hand was on the door, and she hastily 
brushed back the tears. Stop ! she must look at 


THE FIRST DAY AT MRS. MORGAN* S. 


mother’s morning text — her first morning of all 
others. She tore off the wrapper and took up 
the first card. They were laid in the order in 
which they were to be used : — 

“ And whatsoever ye do, do it heartily, as to 
the Lord, and not unto men.” 

Margery’s face brightened. Sure enough, it 
was for the Lord and not men she was trying to 
do this ; and how foolish for her to mind what 
these silly little children said ! She would do her 
work so heartily that they would soon have a 
different opinion of her, that was all. Just one 
moment more — she had almost forgotten her 
morning prayer. Then she went out with a face 
cheery in spite of headache. 

‘‘ Good morning, boys ! ” she said brightly. 
“ What, nearly dressed ? Why, you had almost 
beaten me ! What is it, Fred ? Can I help you ? ” 
“ It ’s these horrid things that won’t go back 
in the drawer ” — giving vigorous pokes to a 
tumbled mass of half -folded clothes. “ I had to 
get a pair of stockings and of course everything 
was on top — it always is, you know.” 

‘‘Yes,” said Margery, laughing, “that’s the 
way it seems to me when I want anything from 
my drawers ; but I ’ll tell you what I ’ve found 


54 


MARGERY'S VACATION. 


out, Fred. It is easier to take them out carefully 
all folded and then to ]ay them back so than to 
tumble them up and have to fold them over again. 
But did you find the stockings } ” 

“ Yes ’m ; but I wanted to get these things back 
before mother comes.” 

“ I ’ll put them back, Fred, while you put on 
the stockings. I ’m glad you ’ve learned to leave 
them off as soon as they have holes in. It will 
make my mending so much easier.” 

“ Are you going to mend our stockings for us .^” 
asked Walter. 

‘‘Yes, of course. Gertrude did it when she 
was here, did n’t she } And I am going to try 
to do everything she did, if I can.” 

‘"Do you know how to mend stockings.?” pur- 
sued Walter, somewhat incredulously. 

“ Oh, yes ! I always do my own, and sometimes 
I do them for Ted and Dot.” 

“ Why, Maggie Dart said you could n’t do any- 
thing but play the piano — she calls it pianner,'' 
broke in Fred. 

“ Well, you see, Maggie did not know. But 
come, we must hurry, or breakfast will be ready 
before we are. I smell the coffee now. That ’s 
right ; now, Walter, if you will show me where I 


THE FIRST DAY AT MRS. MORGAN^ S. 55 

can wash I will be ready to brush your hair by 
the time you button your shoes.” 

“ There ’s a washstand right in the kitchen. 
Mother’ll show you,” said Walter; ‘‘but I can’t 
find a button hook.” 

“ Here is one,” said Margery. “I almost always 
have one in my pocket to lend to Ted and Dot.” 

“ Who ’s Ted and Dot ” queried Fred. 

“They are my little brother and sister. Ted is 
six years old and Dot is four.” 

“ Do you help them dress } ” 

“ Sometimes ; not always. But come, we must 
not talk or we shall be late.” And Margery dis- 
appeared in the kitchen. 

“Good-morning, Mrs. Morgan,” she said pleas- 
antly. “ I am a little late, I fear ; but you must 
call me when you get up. You know we are 
rather lazy at home. Papa is often out late at 
night and likes to sleep in the morning. I like 
to get up early if I can only wake — especially 
in summer time. Walter said I should find a 
place to wash here.” 

“Yes, over in that corner; we have to all wash 
in one place. Our bedrooms are too small for 
toilet accommodations. I am afraid it will seem 
inconvenient to you.” 


56 


MARGERY'S VACATION. 


“ Oh, no,” said Margery. “ It will make me 
seem more like one of the family. Why, how 
nice you have it fixed here — a real little bath- 
room ! ” 

The corner was separated from the rest of the 
room by a large folding screen, and here Margery 
found everything necessary to her toilet. Cheap 
and plain but scrupulously neat seemed the order 
of this small house. 

And now breakfast was on the table, and Walter 
and Fred came rushing out, trying who should be 
first at the washstand. Margery was there to help 
them. 

“ I did n’t get my button sewed on,” said Fred. 

“ Never mind,” said Margery. “ We will do 
that after breakfast. We must not keep your 
mamma waiting. To-morrow we will have an 
earlier start.” 

The kitchen was a fair-sized room, and well 
that it was, since it must serve the threefold 
purpose of toilet, kitchen, and dining room. The 
morning was warm, but door and windows were 
open and a fresh breeze blew across the breakfast 
table, which stood removed as far as possible from 
the stove. Mrs. Morgan took the folding screen 
and with it shut from sight as well as feeling 


THE FIRST DAY AT MRS. MORGAN^ S. 5 7 

the cook stove, with all its appurtenances ; and, 
presto ! a tidy dining room. 

“ If I have learned nothing else to-day,” wrote 
Margery in the diary which she had promised to 
keep for her mother, “ I have at least learned the 
value of screens.” 

The breakfast of oatmeal, bread and butter and 
coffee Margery thought delicious, though the 
omission of the “ grace before meat ” struck her 
strangely. 

*^You must tell me,” she said, as they rose 
from the table, “just how you plan your morning 
work. I am like that big Irish girl that came to 
mamma for a place, and said, showing a brawny, 
not overly clean arm, — ‘I’s stout an’ willin’, 
ma’am, but not wonted yet ; ’ which meant, 
mamma said, that she was fresh from the fields 
of the Emerald Isle and did n’t know the first 
principles of housework.” 

“ I usually get breakfast while Gertrude attends 
to the children’s dressing and does the sitting 
room work. Then it is all ready for me to sew 
in as soon as breakfast is over ; and she attends 
to the rest of the work during the day ; but of 
course you cannot do all that.” 

“ I shall try,” said Margery. “ I don’t believe 


58 


MARGERY’S VACATION. 


after all I am quite as ignorant as the Irish girl 
was, but I was thinking of the ‘ stout an’ willin’ ’ 
part. Now I must get a big apron, and then for 
some fun. I can sweep and dust nicely — mamma 
taught me herself. I always take care of my own 
room and sometimes of the parlor and nursery 
when nurse is out or has one of her headaches. 
By the way, if you will show me some time to-day 
where the boys’ clothes are kept, and what they 
wear for every day, and so on, I can take that 
part off your hands easily ; mending and all.’ 

You have a wise mother, Margery; many 
women of her means would let a daughter grow 
up to scorn such work.” 

“ I am glad mamma did n’t do so with me, 
for then I could never have let Gertrude go ; and 
I ’m so glad we did it ! Are n’t you ? ” 

I shall try to be. Yes, I really am ; only you 
know, Margery, it ’s the first time in her life she 
was ever away from me a single night — and — 
I feel it.” 

Margery wanted to say, “Just as I miss 
mamma,” but she had made a solemn resolve 
not to let such a word pass her lips no matter 
how often the thought came to her mind ; so she 
only said cheerily : — 


THE FIRST DAY AT MRS. MORGAN^ S. 59 

Yes, I know; but we will get used to it soon, 
and the two months will just fly away ; we shall 
be so busy.” 

Margery went to her bedroom for the apron. 
When she opened the door, the close, ill-smelling 
air fairly stifled her. 

“ Ugh ! ” she said, “the idea of a doctor’s daugh- 
ter and a graduate from the public school hygiene 
sleeping in such an atmosphere as that ! No 
wonder I felt cross and headachy this morning.” 

She threw the window wide open. 

“ There ! ” she said, “ that is the way you shall 
stay nights after this, burglars or no burglars.” 
Then she laughed. “ I don’t believe burglars 
will want anything in this little box of a house 
anyhow.” 

Then she tied on a big gingham apron, put on 
a sweeping cap and began putting the sitting 
room to rights. The task was soon accomplished, 
and she went in search of Mrs. Morgan. She 
found her in the pantry stirring something in a 
wooden bowl. 

“Your room is ready now,” said Margery, “and 
you can get right to sewing if you wish. I will 
take charge of things out here. I shall have to 
bother you a good deal at first, of course, to find 


6o 


Margery^s vacation. 


out how things are, and how you like them done ; 
but when I need help for this I will come and ask 
you, and you need not worry about the house- 
keeping. Cannot I finish what you are doing 
now } ” 

“ It is finished for the present, thank you. I 
am setting bread to rise. Did you ever make 
bread .? ” 

No, ma’am ; but I ’ve seen Betty knead it and 
make it into loaves. She used to let me watch 
her cook a good deal. If you will tell me when 
this is light enough to mix, I think I can finish 
it.” 

“ Very well, you may try it ; and now, since I 
have some important work to finish, I will go to 
my sewing. But you must promise to let me 
know when things go wrong or are too hard for 
you. Will you, child .>* ” 

Yes’m, I ’ll tell you ; but before you go, tell 
me, please, what is to be done after the dishes are 
washed and the kitchen in order — therp are the 
bedrooms, of course, and then what.^*” 

“ Nothing about the house, I believe, until din- 
ner time. We have dinner at half-past twelve. 
The boys get so hungry that we have early din- 
ners : I do not like to have them lunch. Gertrude 


THE FIRST DAY AT MRS. MORGAN^ S. 6 1 


usually gets in an hour or so of mending or sew- 
ing before dinner, but you will hardly be able to 
do that — not at first anyway. Oh, yes ! there 
are the lamps to clean and fill some time to-day. 
The oil can is in the corner of the coal house. 
Walter will show you.” 

With that she went to her sewing, and Margery 
took charge of her new domain. 

It is not my purpose to treat you to a chapter 
of sour bread, burned meats, and ludicrous blun- 
ders in housewifery, worthy the ignorant and 
untutored daughter of Erin. Margery was a 
bright girl and had been taught to use eyes and 
ears. She inherited a good stock of common 
sense, of that very useful species called “ mother- 
wit,” and I am forced to record that she per- 
formed her day’s duties in very creditable fashion, 
and in what seemed to Mrs. Morgan very reason- 
able time, considering it was her first day. The 
important dress was finished, and delivered by 
Walter, who, young as he was, was developing into 
a very trusty errand boy ; and Mrs. Morgan and 
Margery found time for a pleasant twilight chat 
before it was bedtime for the boys. The work of 
the next day was planned and discussed. 

By a sort of tacit consent little was said of the 


62 


MARGERY^ S VACATION. 


travelers, both perhaps feeling it dangerous ground 
while the separation was so new. And while they 
sat by the open door enjoying the cool evening 
breeze and listening to the distant, confused hum 
of city notes, Gertrude lay idly back upon the 
cushions of her palace car and wondered if she 
were dreaming or if she were the real old-fash- 
ioned Cinderella, and whether the prince would 
not soon appear with the glass slipper in hand. 
But no prince appeared — only Harry, with the 
last magazine, a big Japanese fan, a box of cara- 
mels, two oranges, and a bag of peanuts, which 
he emptied in one confused heap into Gertrude’s 
lap. 

Is that all } ” she said, laughing. 

“No,” answered Harry gravely ; “1 have one 
thing more, but it is such a tender relic of the 
past that I would not profane it by contact with 
grosser things ; something on the order of the 
‘ last rose of summer,’ you know ; ” and he drew 
from his pocket a little withered banana, to which 
was tied a card bearing the lines : — 

Only a small banana, 

But it speaks of a bygone day, 

When in luscious strings they hung and swung 
At the grocer’s over the way. 


THE FIRST DAY AT MRS. MORGAN’S. 63 

Only a small banana, 

But I know when a small boy I 
Would cheerfully have ran a 
Whole mile one such to buy. 

Margery would have laughed and said, “ What 
a nonsensical boy you are, Harry!” but Gertrude 
took it in her hand, read the inscription, and then 
laid it carefully on the window-sill, saying, with a 
mock sigh of relief : — 

“ How thankful I am, Harry, that you did n’t 
say anything tragic about the skin I ” 

And then the porter came in and lighted the 
lamps, and in the Morgan cottage it had been 
lamp-lighting time for half an hour or more, and 
the boys were coming noisily up the walk to the 
door, closing the gate behind them with a bang, 
and Margery was pulling out the bed lounge where 
they slept and wondering if they liked stories as 
well as Ted and Dot. 


CHAPTER VI. 


SUNDAY. 

A yTARGERY’S first day in her adopted home 
^ ^ fell on a Wednesday. Thursday and F riday 
passed by with little to distinguish them from 
their predecessors, except, perhaps, that she be- 
came better accustomed to the routine of duties, 
and made both boys her fast friends. Children, 
if won at all, are usually soon won. When, there- 
fore, on the second morning, Margery was dressed 
and ready to help, before they were up, meeting 
them with her bright smile and hearty good- 
morning, questioning them about their plays and 
their plans for the day, sewing on missing buttons, 
and producing whole stockings with as much skill 
and alacrity as did Gertrude, their respect for her 
began to grow rapidly. And when during the 
day she found time to help Walter make a kite, 
and to teach Fred to play marbles when his 
brother had given him up as a dull scholar, both 
boys were quite won over. She even had the 
pleasure of hearing Fred say to the inquisitive 
64 


SUNDA Y. 


65 


Maggie Dart (who proved to be their next-door 
neighbor, and spent much time hanging over the 
line fence to watch the boys at their play) : — 

I don’t care what you say about Margery, 
she’s jolly if she is rich, and she ain’t ‘stuck up’ 
neither, and she knows how to do lots of things. 
Why, she can even make kites and play marbles ! 
And we like her just as well as Gertrude, don’t 
we, Walter.?” 

And Walter responded, “ Bet you we do ! and 
the first boy says anything mean about her’d 
better look out.” 

Saturday proved a very busy day. In Margery’s 
home it had always been a day of preparation for 
the Sabbath. Everything possible was done to 
make the next day’s duties light for servants as 
well as the other members of the family. Mar- 
gery found it different here. Mrs. Morgan had 
extra sewing to finish for delivery that afternoon, 
and Margery helped her an hour or two with that. 
There was also a jacket for Walter and trowsers 
for Fred to be finished off. At the last moment 
it was found that the stocking drawer was empty, 
and a pair for each of the boys must be washed 
and mended. And so one little extra after another 
appeared, until, when supper time came, Margery 


66 


MAJ^GERY^S VACATION. 


thought she had never been so tired in her life ; 
and still there had been no extra cooking done for 
the Sabbath, the boys had not had their weekly 
bath, and she had not even looked at her Sunday- 
school lesson. 

The thought of her Sunday-school lesson pre- 
sented a new problem. Her mind had been so 
filled by her new and strange duties that she had 
thought nothing about the coming Sabbath and 
how it would be spent at the cottage. Could she 
go to Sunday-school as usual } Did she wish to 
go ? These questions came so suddenly upon her 
that she felt dismayed. She seemed now, for the 
first time since she had seen the railway train, 
bearing its precious freight, puff slowly out of the 
depot, to realize that she was in the same city with 
all her accustomed surroundings. Until now she 
had felt as though she too had taken a journey. 
Now it all came back upon her, and she felt the 
strangeness of her situation as she had never done 
before. Just to think of it! She had only to 
walk two blocks, hail a street car, and in less than 
half an hour she could alight at the door of her 
own home. She could run up the broad stone 
steps, ring the bell, and Nancy, the maid, would 
answer with just such a broad smile of welcome 


SUNDA Y. 


67 


as always greeted her when she came home from 
a visit to grandma or aunt Louise. She could 
go up the familiar oak staircase, across the broad 
hall, and open the door of her own pretty room. 
Everything would be just as she had left it. The 
dainty bed with its lace-trimmed coverings, the 
soft, gray carpet strewn with fern leaves, the 
filmy lace curtains at the windows, the dressing 
table with its numberless pretty trifles for use and 
ornament, the set of low bookshelves where re- 
posed her favorite volumes of romance and travel, 
together with last year’s schoolbooks and her writ- 
ing desk, mamma’s last birthday gift. Ah ! but 
mamma ! She could easily cross to her room, and 
there too every article of furniture would stand 
in its accustomed place ; but mother would not 
be there. She could follow on to the nursery: 
perfect quiet and order would reign ; no gay laugh- 
ter, no sound of romping feet would greet her 
ears as she neared the door. Mother would not 
be there, nurse would not be there, neither would 
Ted and Dot. Playthings would be laid away, 
chairs set back, and everything look lonesome and 
unused. Down then to the library : rows and rows 
of books quietly gathering dust, papa’s study chair 
set stiffly on one side the secretary, mamma’s low 


68 


MAUGEIiY^S VACATION. 


rocker on the other. She could put aside the 
crimson curtain that separated papa’s little office 
from the library : nothing but shelves of medical 
books, rows and rows of bottles, waste basket 
yawning empty under the office desk. Then she 
could cross the hall into the sitting room, into the 
parlor, into the dining room : quiet and order 
everywhere ; on into the kitchen : there at last 
she should find signs of life. Good old Betty 
would be there ; there Nancy would have retired 
after answering the door, to give news of her 
coming ; but even here would be the same unusual 
quiet, just the two servants keeping house for 
themselves. All the loneliness of it rushed over 
her in one great wave of homesickness. One 
thing was certain: she could not go in sight of 
home. What about Sunday-school and church } 
Could she take her accustomed place in class and 
face all the inquisitive looks from the girls, who 
knew her family was out of town .? Could she 
answer their well-meant questions and explain to 
them her situation } Worse than all, could she 
bear when Sunday-school was over to take her 
place in the family pew, and watch in vain for 
father, mother, and Harry to come } No, no, no ! 
She must make her isolation as perfect as possible, 


SUNDA Y. 


69 


must not go near her usual haunts, until the two 
months had passed and she was at home again. 
But Sunday with no church or Sunday-school 
when she was well and able to go — would that 
be right ? What would mamma think of it } She 
wished she knew. 

A sudden thought came to her. There were 
other churches in the city where she was not 
known. Mamma would be worshiping in a 
strange place to-morrow — so might she. She 
did not know where Mrs. Morgan went to church. 
She would ask her. There was a little mission 
church three or four blocks away — service at 
one o’clock, Sunday-school at three. Just the 
thing, “ and quite suited to my station,” she told 
herself, with a little laugh. In spite of her home- 
sickness, Margery would see the funny side of 
things. So she fell to planning for the morrow 
— what would be suitable to wear, what the min- 
ister would be like. Should she have to go alone, 
or would Mrs. Morgan or the boys go with her ? 
And soon the keen edge of homesickness wore 
off, and when Mrs. Morgan came back from her 
shopping supper was on the table, the boys 
washed and combed and listening to one of her 
stories, and she herself showed no trace of the 
perplexity she had just been in. 


70 


MARGERY^ S VACATION. 


When Margery awoke next morning the sun 
was shining full and bright into her bedroom 
window. She heard the voices of Walter and 
Fred in the next room, and knew from their con- 
versation that they were dressing. It must be 
very late, was her thought as she sprang up 
hastily. Then she remembered that it was Sun- 
day morning, and no doubt the Morgans, in com- 
mon with most people, — working people especially 
— indulged in later hours than usual on that day. 
With this thought in mind she allowed herself 
to dress more leisurely, and spend more time 
over mother’s morning text. How these texts 
strengthened her for each day’s duty ! It seemed 
to her that her mother must have known before- 
hand what each day’s trial and perplexity would 
be, so well did each verse suit her present need. 
No, Margery, she only knew yoUy and knew the 
Bible well, and had practically tested the comfort 
and strength in each text she so carefully pre- 
pared. This morning it was from the One Hun- 
dred and Eighteenth Psalm : — 

This is the day which the Lord hath made ; we will 
rejoice and be glad in it. 

“ Oh, the dear, dear mother ! ” whispered Mar- 
gery to herself, laying down the card. “ Did she 


SUNDA r. 


71 


guess that on Sunday of all days I should be 
tempted to be homesick and sad ? ” And if the 
quick tears sprang to her eyes they were not 
bitter tears, for she smiled brightly as she brushed 
them away and said again to herself, with a de- 
cisive shake of the head, “ Wc will ‘ rejoice and 
be glad ’ in spite of everything, won’t we, mother 
dear ? ” Thus fortified, she went out to meet 
the boys. 

“I just hate Sunday,” said Walter, and he 
jerked a button off his shoe as if to emphasize 
his dislike. 

“ I just hate Sunday, too,” echoed Fred. 

“But why ” asked Margery cheerily, not act- 
ing the least bit shocked. 

“Oh, it’s such a half-and-half day!” said 
Walter. 

“I think it ’s a whole long day,” put in Fred ; 
“ but that ’s so ; a half and a half does make a 
whole one, don’t it, Margery?” triumphant over 
his arithmetical feat. 

“Yes, it does, Fred,” said Margery, laughing ; 
“but why do you call it a half-and-half day, 
Walter ? ” 

“Oh, it’s sort of half work and half play — 
half fun, you know, with so many things that 


72 


MARGERY^S YACATIO/^T. 


are n’t proper for Sunday, and not much that is 
proper — only to stay round the yard and think 
up fun for next week, and get tired and wish it 
was over.” 

“Yes, I do wish ’t was over,” said little echo 
again. 

“ But I don’t,” said Margery. “ And we won’t 
have any ‘ half-and-half ’ day to-day, boys. We ’ll 
just have a whole happy Sunday, see if we don’t. 
I love Sunday. I always did.” 

“When you was little like us } ” 

“ Yes, when I was little like you ; and Ted and 
Dot love Sunday dearly — and I think it’s 
strange you don’t. It must be you do not man- 
age it right some way ; but we ’ll see what we can 
do with it.” 

“ What made you love Sunday when you was 
little.^” queried Walter. 

“ Why, I don’t know as I can exactly tell. I 
never thought what made me, only I always did. 
I guess we did nicer things on Sunday than any 
other day.” 

“ What did you do .? ” 

“What did we do.? Well, let me think. In 
the first place, we had a longer, nicer breakfast 
than on any other day. We children always had 


SUNDA Y. 


73 


chocolate to drink Sunday morning out of our 
pretty china cups, and other mornings we only 
had a glass of milk. Yes, and there were always 
flowers on the table for Sunday breakfast ; and 
when I was old enough mamma used to let me 
gather them and put them in any vase I liked 
best. Harry used to laugh at me because I liked 
a big white china vase with flowers and gilt all 
over it. He said it was a cheap, common thing, 
and that I had very ‘ artistic taste,’ but I did n’t 
care. I did n’t know what ‘ artistic ’ meant, and 
I thought the vase was pretty anyway ” — 

“ But in winter you could n’t have flowers,” 
broke in Fred. 

“Yes; from the conservatory. I was always 
glad when the time came for the hyacinths, but 
Ted and Dot like pink geraniums best. Harry 
likes heliotrope and roses. Then besides the 
chocolate and flowers, there was always some- 
thing that we particularly liked to eat — currant 
buns or jelly roll, or something like that. No one 
was ever in a hurry at Sunday breakfast either. 
There was no school to get ready for at nine. 
Papa never kept offlce hours Sunday, and all the 
work that could be done beforehand was done 
Saturday. So we sat and talked and enjoyed 


74 


MARGBIiY^S VACATION, 


our breakfast. On Sunday morning too we 
always went into the parlor for prayers — usu- 
ally we had them in the dining room, just sat 
back from the table, you know — for papa was 
always in a hurry. But in the parlor Sunday 
morning there was plenty of time. Mamma 
played the piano and we sang a good deal, some- 
times three or four hymns, and then the children 
repeated their texts for Sunday-school and we 
talked about the lesson. By the time prayers 
were over it was time to dress for Sunday-school. 
Sunday-school is at ten in our church. Every- 
thing was ready and it did not take long. Of 
course we liked Sunday-school — with the music 
and the papers and books and such lovely teach- 
ers. Who could help liking Sunday-school ? Do 
you boys go to Sunday-school ? ’’ 

Both shook their heads. 

“No; never.” 

“ Oh, that is too bad ! Well, you must go. 
You don’t know how nice it is. After Sunday- 
school came church. Sometimes that seemed 
long to us when we were too young to under- 
stand the sermon ; but I liked the music always, 
and when I was very little mamma would some- 
times let me lay my head in her lap and sleep 


SUNDA Y, 


75 


till singing time came again. Then came Sunday 
lunch, and that was even nicer than breakfast. 
All our best silver and mamma’s prettiest china, 
and fruit and flowers, nuts and candy, cake, sand- 
wiches, everything that children liked, only not 
anything that had to be cooked on Sunday. In 
the winter we had tea to drink — we children did 
not have tea on week days — and in summer, 
lemonade, or some other iced drink. In the 
afternoon we had mamma all to ourselves in the 
parlor. We brought our Sunday-school books and 
papers there, and sat in the best chairs or curled 
up on the softest rugs, or mamma sat on the big 
sofa and we huddled round her and she read our 
books for us and told us stories from the Bible, 
all about Joseph and Samson and Samuel and 
Jonah and Daniel and David and all those inter- 
esting people ; you ’ve heard them all, have n’t 
you 

Two more solemn shakes of the head. 

“ No ; we never did. Mamma ’s always so tired 
Sunday she can’t have us bother her ; and Ger- 
trude says it ’s the only chance she has to read, 
and so we have to look out for ourselves,” said 
Walter. 

“Yes, I know,” said Margery gently; “your 


76 


MARGERY'S VACATION. 


mother works very hard, and she does need rest. 
Do you think you should like my kind of a 
Sunday } ” 

“ You better b’lieve I would,” Walter responded. 

“Yes, sir!'' said Fred emphatically. “But 
we have n’t got the things to have it with — the 
flowers and chocolate and lemonade and nice 
dishes.” 

“ No, not exactly,” said Margery, hesitating ; 
“ but you have enough to make a nice Sunday of, 
and we will try. Now hurry up the dressing, so 
that we can have breakfast over and begin. 
When you are dressed you can fold up your bed 
and put away your clothes, can’t you 'i I will go 
now, and help your mother with the breakfast.” 

When Margery came back to call the boys to 
breakfast she found the little sitting room in 
very decent order, and found that, better still, the 
boys were so engaged with their new work that 
they had forgotten to quarrel with each other, or 
fret because it was Sunday. 

“Doesn’t it look nice, Margery.^” said' Fred. 
“We did it all our own selves.” 

“Yes, indeed, Fred; two such big, stout boys 
as you and Walter could save mamma many steps, 
so that she would not always be so tired when 


SUNDA K 


77 


Sunday comes. Now, after breakfast, there will 
be only the dishes to wash, and the bedrooms to 
do up, and then we have the whole long day to do 
just what we please in.” 

“But mamma won’t let us do just what we 
please.” 

“ If you please to do right, she will. And it 
is just as easy to please to do right things as 
wrong things, if we only think so, and much 
pleasanter for us in the end.” 

“What church do you attend when you are 
able to go ” said Margery to Mrs. Morgan at 
' the breakfast table. 

“ I never go.” 

“ Does not Gertrude ? Do not the boys some- 
times ? ” 

“ No ; never. I am always too tired to make 
the effort to go far — even if I cared to mingle 
with my old friends, which, under the circum- 
stances, I do not care to do. Gertrude dislikes 
going alone and feels as I do about mingling with 
wealthy people. Perhaps we ought not to be 
conscious of our poverty, but we are.” 

) “ Yes, I know,” said Margery carefully; “ I sup- 

pose .about most things I would feel just as you 
do. But it seems to me church and Sunday-school 


78 


MARGERY^ S FACAT/O.V. 


are among the necessities of life. I don’t see 
how I could get along without them — that is, if 
I were able to go, of course.” 

“ Perhaps not ; but you know Gertrude and I 
are not church members. We do not feel as you 
do about these things.” 

“ Oh, how I wish you did ! ” 

Margery spoke impulsively. She did not really 
mean to say it — she only thought aloud. Mrs. 
Morgan made no reply for a time. At last she 
said : — 

Of course if our circumstances were different 
I should like to have the children go to Sunday- 
school, and Gertrude and I would enjoy attending 
church where we could listen to good preaching. 
Some of the finest lectures I have ever heard 
were from the pulpit, and I think it quite a proper 
way to spend the Sabbath. I know Sunday is a 
dull day here for the children ; I will not have 
them run in the streets and indulge in rude, noisy 
plays on that day. That, to say the least, is not 
well-bred. Perhaps if I were stronger or had 
more leisure I could do more to amuse them. 
But you see how it is. Sunday is the only breath- 
ing spell Gertrude and I get, and we must rest.” 
If Margery had known that the kitchen door was 


SUNDA Y, 


79 


ajar, and that Mrs. Morgan sat near it paring 
potatoes while she talked to the boys of her 
happy Sundays at home, she would have better 
understood the half-apologetic tone in which she 
now spoke. 

“Yes,” assented Margery; “I see how it is. 
But if the boys went to Sunday-school, for in- 
stance, would it not help the day to pass more 
pleasantly for them, perhaps } ” 

“ Very likely ; but where could they go ? They 
are too young to send alone to a strange place.” 

“ Do none of the children in the neighborhood 
go to any Sunday-school.?” 

“ Oh, yes, to the mission school — nearly all 
of them. But I cannot quite come to that. Send 
my children to a mission .school among a lot of 
low-bred, ignorant people to be patronized by 
ladies who come to teach them and send tracts 
to their mothers, in the same spirit that we used 
to drop our pennies in the contribution box when 
we were children for the conversion of the poor, 
naked Hottentots ! Ladies who teach them to 
be content with their station in life, and not envy 
the rich ; who try to console them by telling them 
that Christ was a carpenter, and who know very 
well that when their, carriages have rolled them 


8o 


MAJiGEJiY^S VACATION. 


back into the fashionable quarter where they live 
they would not be seen speaking to a carpenter 
on the street ; ladies who a few years ago would 
have been proud to be on my calling list, but who 
would speak of me now as ‘a very worthy woman, 
really much above her station in life, you know — 
so unfortunate to feel above one’s surroundings’ ! ” 
Margery had not been prepared for this out- 
burst. She was sorry she had mentioned the 
subject at all. She had heard her mother say 
that Mrs. Morgan felt her changed lot very 
keenly, and that she had lost none of her old 
pride and spirit. But she had never seen her in 
such a mood. Her cheeks were flushed and her 
eyes flashing. No one spoke for a moment. 
Margery was thinking rapidly. She had meant 
to go to this very mission chapel of which her 
friend spoke so bitterly, and she had meant to 
ask her leave to take the boys. But if their 
mother felt this way, how could she ? Ought 
she to go herself } Would it be taken by Mrs. 
Morgan as a disregard of her feelings if she 
went } And she felt truly sorry for this poor, 
disheartened woman, who had no Christ to help 
her. What a hard, dreary life it must be ! Was 
it true, what she had said of mission schools } 


SUNDA Y. 


8i 


All this and more swept through her mind before 
she said timidly : — 

“ I did not know, I did not understand about it ; 
I only thought the boys would like a change. I 
am sorry if I seemed inquisitive.” 

It was Mrs. Morgan’s turn to be sorry now. 

“No, no, child,” she said; “you said nothing 
wrong. I was foolish to speak so to you. Of 
course you cannot understand. I hope you never 
may. I suppose these mission churches and 
schools are well enough in their way — for some 
classes maybe ; but they are not for me.” 

“ Did you ever go .^ ” 

“ No, I never went to one.” 

“ I went once with papa, down in the other 
part of the city. He had a class there. I 
thought it was very nice. The children were 
clean and neat, and the singing was lovely. 
They sang as if they enjoyed it so. I said that 
to papa, and he said perhaps it was because they 
had so little to enjoy. He said the mission school 
was all they had to look forward to during the 
week, some of them. I thought I should like to 
go again. I had thought of going this afternoon 
to the Tenth Street Chapel, it is so near here — 
that is, if you did not object,” 


82 


MARGERY^S VACATION. 


“ Certainly not. Go if you wish, by all means. 
Of course if I were a church member I should 
feel differently about such things. I should per- 
haps think it my duty.” 

Can we go, mamma } We never go any- 
where. Margery said we ought to go to Sunday- 
school. She says it is awful nice.” 

“ I did n’t say ‘ awful,’ did I, Walter } ” said 
Margery, laughing ; “ but I did say, Mrs. Morgan, 
that I thought they would like to go. I meant 
to ask you to let me take them, but of course I 
did not know how you felt about it.” 

Please^ mamma, let us go!” chimed in Fred. 
“ Margery said we ’d have a nice Sunday, and I 
want to hear them sing ‘ Pull forth the shore.’ 
Bob Stark sings it, and it ’s just jolly. He 
learned it at Sunday-school, he says. Here ’s the 
way it goes : ” and, regardless of time and place, 
Fred broke forth: — 

“ Safe in the live boat, sailor. 

Cling to the shelf no more. 

Leave the poor old strangled wretch^ 

And pull forth the shore.” 

Fred sang with the spirit, if not the understand- 
ing, and by the time he had finished both his 


SUNDA Y, 83 

mother and Margery were laughing till the tears 
came. 

“There, Fred,” said the mother, controlling her- 
self ; “ that will do for now. It is not proper to 
sing at the table, you know. No doubt Bob sings 
it as he understands it ; and you sing it as you 
understand him ; and between the two you get it 
a little mixed.” 

“ Well, it ’s pretty, anyhow, and they sing lots 
more. Please let us go, mamma ! we ’ll be ever 
so good.” 

“Oh, if Margery wants to bother with you, I 
don’t care if you go while she is here ; but you 
must not expect to go as a regular thing. I can- 
not have you with that set of children. That is 
really the worst thing about our poverty, Margery, 
the class of children they have to associate with, 
and the language they pick up. Just the other 
day Fred was counting for me, and when he 
reached the limit of his knowledge he said serenely, 
‘That’s all the far I can go!' and just then he 
heard a knock at the door, and told me that some 
one wanted in. Just think of it ! Do you wonder 
I feel as I do } ” 

“ Indeed I do not ; and I am so glad you will let 
the boys go. I will take good care of them, and 


84 


MARGERY^ S VACAT/OJSr. 


you can have a quiet nap while we are gone. 
Thank you ever so much. I dislike so to go 
alone.” 

Margery gave each of the boys a picture book 
to amuse them while she dispatched the morning 
work, for she meant if possible not to let them see 
a dull moment during the day. They should help 
her fulfill the command to “ rejoice and be glad.” 
She had taken the precaution to bring with her 
the brightest and best of the large store of juve- 
nile books with which the Mayne nursery was sup- 
plied, and those which she now gave to the boys 
so charmed them that they could scarcely believe 
their ears when Margery told them that the work 
was all done and the day was theirs together. 
One generous maple grew in the corner of the 
back yard. Under the shade of this Margery 
sat with her charge and told them Bible stories 
until the shifting of the shadows warned her that 
it was time for them to lunch and dress for church 
and Sunday-school. 

“ This has n’t seemed a bit like Sunday,” 
remarked Walter, as they sat quietly in the cool 
evening twilight. The story of their first day in 
church had been told over and over by both boys 
to their mother. A most minute description of 


3UNDA Y. 


85 


their Sunday-school teacher had been furnished ; 
their papers and text-cards read, and now, tired 
and happy, they were ready for bed. 

“ Why has it not seemed like Sunday ” asked 
Mrs. Morgan. 

“ Oh, it has been such a jolly day, I ’m sorry 
it ’s all through. I wish ’t was Sunday again 
to-morrow.” 

“ So do I,” assented Fred. 

As for Margery, the day she had so much 
dreaded seemed to have flown by on swift wings. 
Such a busy day it had been to her ! Yes, such a 
happy day ! To feel that she had been able to 
make for the boys their first pleasant Sunday was 
sufficient in itself to make her “rejoice and be 
glad.” 


CHAPTER VII. 


THE FIRST LETTERS. 

TV TEARLY two weeks had now elapsed since 
^ the Mayne party started for Colorado. An 
occasional hastily written card, mailed at different 
stations along the route, had kept Mrs. Morgan 
and Margery informed of their prosperous journey 
thither, and of the good health of all ; but real 
letters, they said, would be deferred till they 
reached their first stopping place. “Then,” re- 
marked Harry in one of his characteristic cards, 
“ tidy up the room, wash your face and hands, 
and sit down prepared to read one hundred pages 
of manuscript at the very least.” 

Margery wished fervently that the promised 
pages would hurry and come, even if there were 
but ten instead of one hundred. When at last 
Walter came bounding into the room where Mrs. 
Morgan and Margery sat sewing, flourishing a fat 
envelope in either hand, the work was promptly 
laid aside and neither stopped to “tidy up the 
room,” you may be sure. The long-looked-for let- 


THE FIRST LETTERS, 87 

ters from the travelers had come at last. Mar- 
gery tore her envelope open in such haste that it 
fell completely apart, scattering its contents in a 
white shower upon the carpet. One, two, three, 
four, five, six separate packets, counted Walter 
as he helped her pick them up. 

“One from every single one of them, even Ted 
and Dot,” laughed Margery, as she glanced at a 
tiny sheet on which were Ted’s scrawling charac- 
ters and Dot’s rambling marks. “ How good of 
them ! I will take them to my room if you 
please, Mrs. Morgan, for Walter and Fred will be 
anxious to hear you read Gertrude’s letter, and 
I will share them with you afterward.” And 
gathering the precious bundle in her hands, she 
danced into the little bedroom and sat down 
in the low chintz-cushioned chair to enjoy her 
feast. 

“ Was it not funny,” she confided to her diary 
that night, “that, when the letters really came, 
I read every single one of the others before I 
touched mamma’s } I began with Ted’s and fol- 
lowed every one of Dot’s funny little marks, and 
tried to guess what they meant, and then I read 
Harry’s nonsense (such a dear, silly boy he is !) 
and Gertrude’s beautiful descriptions of what they 


88 


MARGERY’S VACATION. 


saw, and papa’s short, businesslike one, — written 
for all the world like a prescription. — and then, 
last of all, the dear, darling mother’s. Would n’t 
you have thought I ’d have taken hers the first 
thing } But I could n’t someway — I wanted to 
have the others all off my mind and just settle 
down to real solid comfort with hers — not feel as 
if I must hurry it through to read the others. I 
read all the rest to Mrs. Morgan afterward, but 
not mother’s. I just told her some things she 
said. Of course the letter was just such a sweet, 
lovely one as you might expect from mamma, and 
the beauty of it was it did n’t make me feel the 
least bit homesick, but only glad I did it — came 
here I mean. I call it my first love letter, and I 
shall always keep it and never show it to any 
one.” 

So you see, dear reader, that Mrs. Mayne’s 
letter is forbidden us. And I say, happy is that 
young girl whose first real love letter is from a 
loving Christian mother. Keep it then, Margery: 
guard it as jealously as you please. Live as long 
as you may, no other hand will ever write you a 
message from a heart half as tender and true. 
Lovers and friends may be plenty — of mothers 
there will be but one ! We may have the other 


. THE FIRST LETTERS . 89 

letters, however, in the order in which Margery 
read them. 

Dear Margie^ — I saw prairie dogs. I like to 
ride on the cars. Gertie is pretty, but I like you 
best. We sleeped on shelves in the cars. Dot 
and I had the bottom shelf in one cupboard, and 
nurse had the top one, and the rest had some in 
some more cupboards. In the morning the man 
put up the top shelves and made car seats out of 
the bottom ones. I wish you had come too. 

Good-by, 

Halstead Mayne. 

Mamma spelled me the hard words. Good-by. 

Dot’s letter was not translatable. 

Colorado Springs, Col., July 3. 

Dear Kit, — Our family assembled in council 
last night and agreed to divide up the correspond- 
ence business as follows, so that we should not all 
tell you the same things ; father is to deal in solid 
facts and statistics ; mother will do the affection 
and “ miss-you-at-home ” business, and also fur- 
nish all necessary advice; Gertrude will come out 
strong on the scenery part — “lofty mountain,” 


90 


MA/^GEJ^V’S VACATION, 


“rushing torrent,” “broad expanse,” “gloomy soli- 
tude,” and all that ; your humble servant has 
charge of the department of miscellany, for 
which broad field his diversity of talent so emi- 
nently fits him. Having all his life been accus- 
tomed to make a very little knowledge go a long 
way, he has acquired quite a reputation for that 
broad culture which the field of miscellany seems 
to demand. Halstead and Dorothy insist on 
sharing the burden of our literary attempt, but we 
have thought it best to place no restriction upon 
their budding thoughts but leave their infantile 
minds free to roam in any available realm of 
fancy. Halstead is at this moment engrossed by 
a mercantile affair. I see from my chamber win- 
dow and learn from the scraps of conversation 
that float upward that he is trying to arrange 
with a barefooted, frowsy-headed urchin the pur- 
chase of a reptile which they call a horned toad. 
Said toad looks, as near as I can make out from 
my point of view, like an oval piece of mud flat- 
tened on two sides and sprinkled with gunpowder. 
I believe there is a pointed stick stuck in one end 
which may be a tail ; the head is not, from this 
distance, visible. They say it has a row of horns 
all around the margin of it. Anyway the toad 


THE FIRST LETTERS, 


91 


seems to be quite an article of commerce in Col- 
orado, for I hear the urchin telling father, who 
has just joined the group, that this toad is dirt 
cheap at fifteen cents. Also he tells him that 
“ folks buys ’em and sends ’em back east to their 
friends for pets.” “ For pets } ” echoes father. 
“Yes, sir! you can tame ’em same’s a cat or 
dog, so ’s they ’ll follow you all round and come 
when you call ’em. They make mighty nice pets; 
and ” (seeing father hesitate with his hand in his 
pocket) “they’re scarce an’ hard to get.” Well, 
father has bought the toad and delivered it to Ted, 
who, with the familiarity of a born naturalist, has 
taken it in his hand and gone in search of a box. 
I see the boy slouch across the street and hear 
him mutter to himself : “ There ! I knowed they 
was tenderfeet.” I wonder what he means. 
Probably he has cheated Ted in the matter of 
the toad. If you will excuse me a moment, I will 
go down and see. 

Four hours later. — It did not take me all this 
time to find out about the toad, but other matters 
engaged me and I concluded to put off finishing 
my miscellanies till evening ; so here I am in my 
room at the hotel, sitting under the searching 
glare of the electric light, trying to imagine I 


92 


MARGERY'S VACATION. 


am in Colorado. Things don’t seem as I ex- 
pected them. I was in for wildness and rusticity 
and “ roughing it ” and all that, and I find myself 
with every convenience of modern civilization. 
It is really very disapppinting to have one’s hopes 
dashed in this way, to get out of the cars in the 
heart of the “ wild and woolly west ” and be 
confronted by a stunning stone depot, finished 
inside with carved oak and stained glass, and 
then to be put into a landeau and driven to a 
stylish hotel through business streets flaunting 
their plate glass and fine stone architecture and 
gay equipages and jingling horse cars and rows 
and rows of wire-laden poles — telegraph poles, 
electric light poles, telephone poles, everything 
but the North Pole, and possibly that — don’t 
know as I should know it if I saw it ; past 
elegant residences, with diamond window panes 
and oriel windows and shingled gables and Dutch 
doors and dismal paint and all that goes to make 
up the rnciento-modern, or moderno-ancient archi- 
tecture of to-day — I don’t know what they call 
it ; to be driven past all this and get out in front 
of an imposing hotel and see the piazzas thronged 
with fashionably dressed ladies, and children with 
French nurses in aprons and caps, and be taken 


THE FIRST LETTERS. 


93 


to one’s apartments (engaged beforehand by tele- 
graph too) in an elevator. I leave it to you, Kit, 
if this is hardly fair to a fellow who has been 
looking for something after the “Buffalo Bill” 
style. Why, one might as well go to Newport 
or Saratoga and be done with it. The only 
really “ native ” thing I have struck yet was the 
horned-toad episode. By the way, I must tell 
you the result of my investigations. I am told 
that this reptile is quite common here, not a real 
toad, but a sort of lizard, with a long name of 
course, and that they really may be tamed if 
any one knows how to do it. They say they are 
as common in a schoolboy’s pocket as tops, mar- 
bles, or string, and that they are considered quite 
as proper a gift for a teacher as the regulation 
apple or bonbon of the east. To-morrow we go 
to Manitou, Garden of the Gods, Grand Cavern, 
etc., as per guidebook. We shall then decide 
whether to make headquarters for our first month 
here or at Manitou. As for me, I want to be off 
to the mountains on a camping trip soon. Possi- 
bly there I may find the “native” and realize 
my dream of the west. 

Kit, I hope you are not dismal and sorry you 
did it. If you could see how Gertrude takes it 


94 


MARGERY^ S VACATION. 


all in and how well she is looking, I know you 
would feel paid twice over ; only it 's a shame 
you could not both be here. Never mind, we ’ll 
come again together. Kit, just you and I, and by 
that time I ’ll know all about it and act as guide. 
So brace up like the plucky girl I know you are. 

Yours, Harry. 

Margery did not read the last paragraph to 
Mrs. Morgan. 

“ So Gertrude is to be the scene painter,” said 
Mrs. Morgan, smiling. “ She ought to do pretty 
well at that. I always enjoyed her descriptions of 
things. They seemed so vivid.” 

“Yes,” answered Margery. “When she was 
talking to me about the hammock at grandma’s, 
I could see it all just as she said it. I could 
almost feel the motion of the hammock and the 
breeze blowing across my face ; but here is her 
letter : — 

Dear Margery, — Harry has mapped out our 
work for us in his own fashion, and has informed 
me that I am expected to “ do the scenery,” as he 
calls it. It is quite possible that I may disappoint 
him in this, for if Colorado scenery is what it is 


THE FIRST LETTERS. 


95 


reputed to be, it will require descriptive talent 
beyond anything that I possess to do it justice. 
Your brother Harry, by the way, is one of the 
drollest boys I ever met, as well as the best. I 
never felt really acquainted with him before. 
You know, being a boy, and in the class above 
us at school, he was not much in our school set, 
and that, you know, is the only “ set ” I have at 
home. I always thought I should be afraid of 
him, but he has been so jolly and kind that I can 
never thank him enough, and we get on splen- 
didly together. I think he made up his mind 
that I should not be homesick, for all during our 
journey out if I began to feel the least bit solemn 
or blue, he was sure to be on hand with some- 
thing bright to read, or some of his own delight- 
ful nonsense, till I found myself laughing in spite 
of everything. Sometimes I almost reproached 
myself for being so cheerful, because I knew that, 
according to all the storybooks I ever read, I 
ought to be weeping my eyes out in grief over my 
separation from mamma, or feeling the weight of 
an overwhelming obligation to you for letting me 
come. I do feel that, Margie dear (is n’t it funny 
how much easier it is to say “dear” on paper 
than to say it in words T), more and more^ and the 


96 


MAJ^G£JiV’S VACATION. 


happier time I have the more I feel it. You want 
me to enjoy it, I know, and so does mother, and 
— well, maybe it is dreadfully selfish and not the 
right thing to do — but now I am here, I am 
going to just let myself loose to have all the good 
I can out of my fairyland, for I know the wand 
will be waved all too soon which will . transform 
me once more into poor Gertrude Morgan, of 
Poverty Heights. It is so strange, Margie — I 
can’t make you realize it because you have al- 
ways been in it — but I was so young when papa 
lost his money that it is just the same as though 
I had been born in poverty ; and then to step so 
suddenly into such delicious ease and comfort ! 
It is fairyland, real and true. I never knew such 
people as yours are, Margie. Such sweet, gentle 
kindness as they show me. Such a way they 
have of making me feel that I belong with them 
just as much as if I were you, and yet not one 
of them has ever said in words that they hoped - 
I ’d feel at home. When people tell me to make 
myself at home, I always feel so awkward and 
don’t know how to do it. If there is such a thing 
as “tact,” I think they must have a remarkable 
share of it. I have just picked up the evening 
paper and glanced over the arrivals at our hotel, 


THE FIRST LETTERS. 


97 


and this is how we are registered : “ Dr. and Mrs. 
Mayne, family, and nurse, and Miss Gertrude 
Morgan.” Could anything be nicer See how 
independent that makes me feel among people, 
in spite of myself. There is no chance for any 
misunderstanding — no need of any explanations. 
I might be the daughter of a millionaire, for all 
any one here would know. I did venture to say 
to Harry that I felt almost like a sham, to have 
people class me right in with the aristocratic set 
who stopped here. I hated myself after I had 
said it, and of course I expected he would look 
sort of pitying and say : Oh, please don’t feel 
that way about it,” or something of the sort; but 
he only looked solemn as an owl and said : — 

“ Of course. Miss Morgan [he never calls me 
‘ Miss Morgan ’ in real earnest], one would ‘ rather 
be right than to be president,’ and if your con- 
science troubles you in this matter, I will at once 
see that the proper explanation is appended to 
your name on the hotel register. What would 
you suggest.? How would this do, say: ‘Miss 
Morgan — poor but respectable ’ — or, ‘a very 
worthy person, but in humble circumstances ’ .? Of 
course I never remember to have seen anything 
just like that on a register ; but one must dare 
to be conspicuous for the sake of being honest ! ” 


98 


MARGEJ^Y^S VACATIOJY. 


It was so utterly ridiculous that I had to 
laugh, of course, and Harry laughed with me, and 
that was the last of it. I shall not make a 
fool of myself again, but try my best to reflect 
credit on the Dr. Mayne party, as we are called 
here. 

Here I have written three full pages about no- 
thing but my own selfish self. I have not told you 
a word about our journey, and as for scenery, we 
have n’t had very much yet. Crossing the prairies 
of Kansas and the western plains of Colorado is 
monotonous enough. All about Pueblo is barren 
and dreary — so it seemed to me. Oh, of course 
there are farms along the Arkansas, fields of 
grain and alfalfa and all that, but that is not scen- 
ery, is it } Not natural scenery, anyway. We 
don’t have to come to Colorado to see that. Oh, 
but there was one thing worth mention between 
here and Pueblo. The road follows very closely a 
stream which they call the Fontaine Qui Bouille 
— or more commonly the Fountain. Well, as the 
train whirled swiftly by, I caught most tantalizing 
glimpses of what seemed to be great trees cov- 
ered with beautiful pink flowers. They looked 
like great oleanders, only the foliage seemed more 
graceful. Now and then one would be seen with 


THE FIRST LETTERS. 


99 


the pink flowers intermingled with feathery tufts 
of white. These trees or shrubs — I could hardly 
tell which — seemed literally to line the banks of 
the muddy stream, and sometimes to almost inter- 
lace from bank to bank. At last the train slack- 
ened its speed to whistle some cattle off the track, 
and close at hand was such a group of pink and 
white, I strained my eyes to make them out, and 
finally the train stopped. And what do you think 
they really were Actually, wt/d roses! Just 
think of it, Margie ! hundreds and thousands of 
lovely wild roses, and the bushes grown to the 
size of trees ! And the white was the blossom of 
a delicate vine that clambered all over the rose 
bushes. A white clematis, some one in the car 
told me it was. Oh, yes ! and on the plains 
through which this rose-bordered stream ran, the 
cactus was in bloom. Red, yellow, and pink in 
almost every shade. So odd they are ; looking 
like rosettes of satin pinned on the stiff, ungainly 
leaves of the prickly pear, or the funny green 
balls of what they call the cushion cactus. The 
tree cactus I did not see. They say that grows 
farther south. The lady who told me about the 
clematis says that we are just in time for the 
most beautiful Colorado flowers. I have already 


lOO 


MARGERY^ S VACATION. 


planned to make a collection for you. I am glad 
I thought to put my botanies in my trunk. To- 
morrow we go to see the sights, and next time I 
write you I shall have something to say outside of 
my petty self, perhaps. 

I hope you do not get lonesome, and that the 
boys are moderately tame, and don’t talk you to 
death. With love and love and love, 

Gertrude. 

“ Gertrude will be happy if she has found wild 
flowers. I never saw a child with such a passion 
for them as she has,” remarked Mrs. Morgan. 

“ Perhaps that was the reason she always stood 
so well in botany at school. Miss White said she 
made the most correct analyses of any one in her 
class,” said Margery. 

My dear Daughter, — I judge from the size of 
this letter packet, which they have left for me 
to add to, that there is not much I need to say. 
We had a very prosperous journey out, and so far 
are much pleased with what we see. We hear so 
much of the healthfulness of Colorado that it 
strikes us rather oddly at first to see so many 
invalids on the streets and about the hotels and 
to see the sign of a doctor’s office at almost 


THE FIRST LETTERS. 


lOI 


every turn. I am told that there are no less 
than twenty practicing physicians here in good 
standing, not to mention quacks and faith healers 
and Christian scientists, etc. The trouble is, one 
forgets this is a health resort, and that Colorado 
Springs’ population must necessarily be largely 
made up of invalids and semi-invalids. It would 
please you, I am sure, to see how much Gertrude 
seems improved in health, even in the short time 
we have been out. Strange to say, she is the only 
one of the party who does not seem affected by 
the light air. A doctor whom I met this morning, 
and who has been resident here for some years, 
tells me that a person with perfectly sound lungs 
feels the short breath consequent upon the in- 
creased altitude far more than the consumptive 
or one with weakened lungs. We miss you very 
much, daughter, but I think we all feel proud of 
you for your sturdy resolution in the matter, and 
we are sure you will lose nothing by your sacri- 
fice, either in peace of mind or the esteem and 
love of your friends. We are anxious to hear 
from you, and shall write you every few days, 
some one of us. Do not imagine from what I 
said that I consider Gertrude a consumptive. I 
do not; but she has that hereditary tendency. 


102 


MARGERY^ S VACATION. 


which I hope this change of climate will do much 
toward correcting. Give my kindest regards to 
Mrs. Morgan, and let her know my opinion of 
Gertrude’s health. May God bless you, my dear 
Margery, and help you to be cheerful and happy. 

Your affectionate father, 

Harrison Mayne. 

“ They need not fear that I shall be lonesome 
and unhappy,” said Margery brightly, when she 
had read Mrs. Morgan portions of her letters. 
“ I think I was never so happy in my life. It is 
the first time I ever lEelt really useful, really 
necessary to any one, you know. Oh, I am so 
glad Gertie is having a good time ! I knew they 
would be kind to her, but I was afraid she would 
not let herself enjoy it.” 

“You are a good girl, Margery.” That was all 
Mrs. Morgan said, but it was much, coming from 
her. 


CHAPTER VIII. 


Margery’s charge. 

OOD-MORNIN’, ma’am. Ye be Misthress 
Morgan, plaze ? ” 

“Yes, I am Mrs. Morgan. What can I do for 
you ? Will you be seated ? ” 

“ Thank ye, ma’am. I be a newcomer here, 
an’ it plaze ye ; I ’ve taken the bit house down 
at the end of the alley just beyant. I ’m a wid- 
der, ma’am — with no childer — barrin’ this one 
ye sees by my side now, and I ’m off to service 
by the day. Me neighbor, Misthress Brown it 
was, was a-tellin’ me as ye sometimes took the 
childer of the like o’ me, by the day, for a bit of 
hire, ma’am. Ye see the chile is small like, to 
I’ave by herself, and I ’ve a good chance for a 
place, where they won’t be bothered with a chile. 
I ’ll be home the nights, an’ I could I’ave her be 
where I ’ll know she ’s safe, ma’am, I ’d never 
begrudge the pay — if it’s razonable.” 

“ We did sometimes take children in that way 
when my daughter was here ; but she is away this 
summer, and I hardly think we could manage it.” 


104 


MARGERY'S VACATION. 


** Indade, thin, ma’am, I ’m sorry to hear ye 
say it. It ’s a good place I ’d be havin’, an’ stiddy 
work, if I could only lave the chile.” 

Margery, who, in her bedroom with door ajar, 
overheard this conversation, now stepped quickly 
out. 

“ Excuse me, Mrs. Morgan,” she said, nodding 
pleasantly to the good-natured Irish woman, who 
sat holding by the hand an odd, freckled-faced 
little girl, and then turning to Mrs. Morgan — 
excuse me for overhearing you ; but if this 
woman would like to leave her little girl with 
us, why could not I look after her as well as 
Gertrude could — not as well, perhaps, but I 
would do my best with her, if you thought proper 
to take her.” 

“It is not that you would not do well by the 
child, Margery,” said Mrs. Morgan, “but I could 
not think of imposing such a task on you. You 
have enough already to do. No, I think we must 
not take children this summer.” 

“ But,” insisted Margery, “ you forget that I 
am here to do just what Gertrude did, and that I 
am better able to do it.” This in a low tone to 
Mrs. Morgan. Then aloud, “ I am very fond of 
children, Mrs.” — 


MARGERY^ S CHARGE. I05 

‘‘O’Finnegan, ma’am; O’Finnegan, plaze ye.” 

“ Mrs. O’ Finnegan, and if you would trust your 
little girl with me, I think we should get on 
nicely,” continued Margery, nodding and smiling 
to the child, who had scarcely taken her dark blue 
eyes from Margery’s face since she entered the 
room. “ Would you like to stay with me ” she 
added to the child. 

“ Sure an’ I would that,” said this small daugh- 
ter of Erin ; and leaving her mother’s side and 
crossing quickly to where Margery sat, she put 
her hand in hers, and looking into her face said 
gravely : — 

“ And it ’s the face of the blissid Vargin herself 
ye ’ve got, ma’am, and if ye like I ’ll stay wid ye 
for always.” 

“ Ah ! go ’way wid ye ! Where ’s ye manners } 
L’ave the lady alone, Nora. It’s not many days 
she’d be wantin’ ye, an’ ye make free wid her 
like that ! ” 

Margery laughed merrily and, patting the child’s 
freckled hand, said encouragingly : — 

“ I am glad you like me, Nora. I always seem 
to make friends with the children, and I hope 
Mrs. Morgan will think it best for us to take you.” 

“Sure thin, ma’am,” said Mrs. O’Finnegan, 


io6 


MARGERY'S VACATION. 


turning once more to Mrs. Morgan, “a lady like 
yourself ’ll not have the heart to object whin the 
swate young lady’s that willin’ and me Nora in 
love wid her already.” 

Mrs. Morgan smiled faintly. ‘‘Of course,” she 
said, “if Miss Mayne really wishes it, I should 
have no objection to offer. Do you really wish it, 
Margery } ” 

“ Indeed I do ; and I think Walter and Fred 
would enjoy a companion. Do not you } ” 

Mrs. Morgan looked doubtful. “ Perhaps so,” 
she said ; “ but that need not matter. They do 
very well as they are ; but have your own way 
about it, Margery.” 

“ May the saints bless ye, thin ! ” ejaculated 
Mrs. O’Finnegan fervently. “And what would ye 
be after chargin’ me the day } ” turning to Mar- 
gery. It was on her tongue’s end to say, “ Oh, 
nothing, Mrs. O’Finnegan ; I should want no pay. 
I would be glad to do you the favor ; ” but she 
bethought herself that she was in Gertrude’s 
stead ; that Gertrude did this for money to buy 
books and clothes. Of course, then, in her 
absence she must earn it for her. How odd that 
seemed — to be working for pay ! All this passed 
rapidly through her mind ; but she betrayed 


MARGERY^S CHAEGE. I07 

nothing. She merely said, “ Oh, I shall leave all 
arrangements to Mrs. Morgan.” 

“We have usually taken references,” said Mrs. 
Morgan, in a businesslike manner. “You see, I 
have children of my own, and I must necessarily 
be particular about their associations.” 

“ Sure, ma’am, and it ’s right ye are,” said Mrs. 
O’Finnegan, nodding emphatically, “and I’ll be 
pleased to give ye them. And I ’ll not be afther 
asking the riference of ye, for that me neighbor, 
Mrs. Brown, gave me the character of ye before 
I came to ye.” 

Mrs. Morgan flushed. She had not been long 
enough in “ Poverty flats ” not to wince at the 
thought of a common Irish servant like this re- 
quiring a “ character” of her ! She took no notice 
of it, however, and went on to conclude the bar- 
gain with Mrs. O’ Finnegan, whose references 
proved quite satisfactory. While this little matter 
of business was in hand between the elder ones, 
Margery took occasion to question somewhat 
further her prospective ward. 

“ How old are you, Nora } ” she asked. 

“Nine years come Michaelmas, ma’am.” 

“ And when is Michaelmas } ” questioned Mar- 
gery, smiling. 


MARGERY^ S VACATION, 


io8 

Nora opened her blue eyes to their widest 
extent and fastened upon Margery a look of 
pitying wonder. 

And ye ’re not after knowin’ the Michaelmas, 
ma’am } ” Margery always declared there was a 
depth of scorn, at her ignorance, in the child’s 
tone. 

‘^No,” said Margery soberly, “I am afraid not.” 

‘‘Why, thin,” said Nora, “it’s the time o’ the 
year when the leaves turn red, an’ the frosts 
come> an’ the feast of the howly Saint Michael ; 
an’ me birthday falls on the very Michaelmas day 
itself.” 

“ But what month is it .? ” pursued Margery. 

Nora shook her head. It was her turn to be 
puzzled now. 

“ I ’ll not be after tellin’ ye that,” she said. 

“ What a devout little Catholic she is,” thought 
Margery, “and how old for her years ! She talks 
more like nineteen than nine years old ; and so 
small — she looks almost elfish.” Truly she was 
a strange-looking child, this Nora of the house of 
Finnegan — small as an average child of five, with 
straight, coal-black hair and clear blue eyes and a 
skin that would have been fair as Margery’s own 
but for its freckles. Had it depended on the 


MARGEJ^Y'S Ci/AEGE. 


iOg 


eyes and brow alone, she would have been pretty ; 
but the nose had the upward tendency and the 
mouth the generous breadth that marks the true 
Hibernian, and in her case rendered the small 
face fairly grotesque. This face wore such a sol- 
emn look that Margery wondered if she ever 
smiled. Most of the Irish children she knew wore 
an almost perpetual grin, when they were not 
excited by anger or fear. Nora’s face had also a 
look of serenity very unusual in a child, especially 
of Aer race, who were usually characterized by 
their flashy tempers, so Margery thought. But 
surely no passionate person could look as calm as 
did this morsel with the clear, deep eyes. Margery 
loved her already in spite of the mouth and nose. 
But Margery was impulsive, you know ; and the 
child, with a touch of true Irish “blarney,” had 
told her she had the face of the Virgin. And who 
of us is entirely impervious to flattery ? 

This was Saturday morning, and Mrs. O’ Fin- 
negan wished to leave Nora with them on the 
following Monday. She would breakfast at home, 
dine with the Morgans, and return with her 
mother, who came from her work at six o’clock. 
These arrangements being completed, and a price 
agreed upon, Nora and her mother departed. 


no 


MARGERY^ S VACATION. 


calling upon sundry saints to bless the two “ swate 
ladies.” 

“ I fear you will have more on your hands than 
you bargained for,” said Mrs. Morgan. “ I dislike 
to have you do it, Margery.” 

“ Oh, no, Mrs. Morgan ; I am sure I shall have 
no trouble at all. She is such a quiet little thing, 
and perhaps here is some real missionary work 
brought right to my door. Perhaps I can teach 
her many useful things.” 

“ Perhaps so,” assented Mrs. Morgan ; but she 
looked doubtful. 

Margery had contrived that on this Saturday 
fuller preparation should be made for the Sabbath, 
so that she could relieve Mrs. Morgan entirely on 
that day and still have plenty of time to devote 
to the boys. The busy day flew by and so filled 
her thoughts with plans for another happy Sunday 
for Walter and Fred that she thought little of her 
new charge until she sat down in the twilight for 
her bedtime talk with them. Both boys had been 
away when Mrs. O’ Finnegan called, and nothing 
had as yet been said to them of the anticipated 
addition to the family circle. Now Margery told 
them all about it, and to her surprise they did not 
seem well pleased. She had not remembered that 


MARGEJ^y^S CBARGE. 


I I I 


these summer day boarders were no new thing 
at the Morgan cottage. Instantly both children 
began to recall incidents of different ones whom 
Gertrude had had in charge at various times, and 
these incidents were on the whole not very pleas- 
ing. There was Dick, who broke their playthings 
and cheated at marbles ; Tom, who called names 
and swore at them when mother and Gertrude did 
not hear. There was little two-year-old Sally, 
who was always running away, and Gertie made 
them spend all their time watching her — so the 
boys said. Then there was Jimmy Jones, aged 
four, who kicked and screamed when his face was 
washed for dinner, and insisted on eating with his 
fingers and wiping his mouth with his sleeve in 
spite of all that Gertie could do. And so they 
went on through the list. 

“ Did you have no nice children } ” asked Mar- 
gery. 

“Yes, some,” said Walter doubtfully ; “ but girls 
are such a bother. You have to give them all the 
best things just ’cause they are girls, and when 
they ’re mean you can’t hit them back.” 

“ You should not want to ‘ hit them back,’ ” 
said Margery, laughing ; “ but I don’t think this 
little Nora will be mean to you. She is a quiet 


1 12 


MARGERY’S VACATION. 


little thing, and does not look at all bad-tempered. 
I hope you and Fred will try to make it as pleas- 
ant for her as you can.” 

“ Yes,” said Walter, heaving a sigh as he drew 
off one shoe and turned it upside down, scattering 
the sand and gravel over the sitting room carpet, 
“yes, that’s what Gertie always told us. We 
must be good to them, no matter what they did, 
because we had to have the money for them. I 
wish folks did n’t have to have money for every- 
thing. I wish I owned this whole city, and I 
would n’t be so mean and stingy as to make folks 
pay for every single bit of a thing they ate, and 
every old hat and clothes they were.” 

“You see, Margery,” said Mrs. Morgan, a little 
bitterly, “it is not the love of money, but the 
want of money, that is the root of all evil.” 

“ Wish I owned the whole world,” chimed in 
Fred, “ and I ’d throw all the old money in the 
stove, and then we ’d have fun.” 

“ I know, boys,” said Margery, “ we do have to 
have money for a good many things ; but I was not 
thinking about the money when I said I hoped 
you would be kind to Nora. I was thinking if 
you, Walter, or you, Fred, were the only child and 
your mother had to leave you with strangers while 


MARGEJ^Y^S CHARGE. II3 

she went to work, that you would like folks to be 
kind ; would you not ? ” 

“ Ye-es, I s’ pose so,” from Walter. 

“Bet I would ! ” from Fred. 

“ And you ’ll try hard to make it pleasant, 
won’t you, boys } ” 

“Oh, yes, we’ll try,” said Walter. 

“ I ’ll let her kick my football all she wants to,” 
said Fred. 

“ Pshaw ! girls don’t kick footballs,” said Wal- 
ter contemptuously ; which only went to show, 
thought Margery, afterward, how little they knew of 
Nora. But she knew how much Fred’s offer meant, 
for the football had been the result of petty self- 
denials and many extra chores for over a month. 

“ And now for bed, boys ; and I wish you would 
remember about the gravel, Walter. It makes 
the room untidy, and causes extra work.” 

“ I forgot this time, Margery ; I don’t mean to 
make you trouble.” 

“ I know you don’t ; but boys will forget some- 
times. Good-night ; and don’t talk, but go to 
sleep at once and be ready for Sunday.” 

“ Good-night, Margery.” 

“ Goody ! goody ! Sunday ! ” 

And that was just like the two boys. 


CHAPTER IX. 


A PAGE OR TWO OF MARGERY’s JOURNAL. 

A yr ARGERY’S journal had been suggested by 
^ her mother as a place to write down 
things that she would like to tell her from day to 
day, and which she would hardly like to put into 
her letters, which would be more or less family 
property. There was to be no reserve in its pages, 
for they would be kept for mother’s eye alone, and 
would give her — what she so longed to have — a 
knowledge of Margery’s everyday experiences 
and trials. Sometimes the entries were very 
short, for it was not unusual for her to be so 
tired when evening came that she was glad to 
creep into bed with only a hasty chapter in her 
Bible and a few lines in the journal. But, like 
Margery, they were honest and to the point ; for 
mother only was in mind when she wrote, and 
even if she had any disposition to write for effect, 
she would not undertake to sham for mother. 

Here is the entry made after the events of the 
last chapter : — 

m 


MARGERY'S JOURNAL. 


II5 

Saturday y July — . 

Such a funny Irish woman came to-day to 
have her little girl taken care of while she went 
to work ! Mrs. Morgan did n’t want to take her 
for fear it would be too hard for me, but I per- 
suaded her to do it, because if I ’m to be Gertrude 
I want to do it all. I want to know all about 
being poor while I have a chance, for I may never 
have another ; and to tell you the truth, mamma 
dear, I don’t care much if I never do. 

Poor Mrs. Morgan! I get sorrier and sorrier 
for her every day ; everything hurts her so. I 
try just as hard as I can not to talk about home, 
for she is so very sensitive to the difference in 
the way we live ; and you know, mamma, I always 
thought we were such very plain people ; but now 
it seems to me sometimes as if I had been Cinder- 
ella, as Gertie says she is now, and I had come 
home and taken off the glass slipper and sat 
down in the ashes again, only everything is neat 
and clean here. I do get — oh, so homesick some- 
times ! (It won’t do any harm to say it here, be- 
cause when you see this it will all be over.) But 
I ’m not sorry — no, truly, I ’m not sorry I did it, 
for the more tired I get, the more I see how much 
poor Gertie needed a vacation after all these years 


Il6 MARGERY^ S VACATION. 

and years of it. And if it was you instead of 
Mrs. Morgan, and I should see you work so hard 
and feel as sad as she does, I think it would just 
kill me. Mrs. Morgan said to-night that the want 
of money, not the love of it, is the root of all evil, 
and I almost think she is right. I used to think 
it was the rich only whose heads were full of dress ; 
but when I see how Mrs. Morgan has to think and 
contrive to make one dollar do the work of ten, 
I don’t see how she can think of anything else — 
she can’t have a chance to ; and as for reading or 
any kind of recreation, if you mentioned it she 
would either smile, that poor, pitiful, hopeless 
smile, or else she would look hard and bitter, and 
I don’t know which makes me feel the worse. 
And, mamma, she is such a beautiful woman, 
too. She looks so out of place in these shabby 
quarters. I look at her sometimes, and imagine 
how she would look in a black velvet dress, with 
fine, white lace at the throat, and — Well, I 
should think Gertie would just go wild thinking of 
her staying on among such common people. You 
ought to have seen her face when that dreadful 
Mrs. O’ Finnegan talked about her references and 
said she had her character from Mrs. Brown ! Oh, 
I must stop talking about it — or writing rather — 


MARGERY'S JOURNAL. 


II7 


or I shall begin to feel hard like Mrs. Morgan ! 
Do you suppose, mamma, I could be a Christian 
if I were poor like that 1 Do you think Mrs. 
Morgan could } If she only could ! If she could 
be helped to bear it better ! Good-night now, 
dear mother ; I must say over something quieting 
or I cannot sleep well. “As one whom his mother 
comforteth ” — that will do, I think. It was a 
card I picked up to-day. 

A week later she wrote this : — 

Something happened to-day that I think you ’d 
better not know until you come home, so I ’ll put 
it down here. You see, I have stayed pretty close 
in the house since I came here. I have been 
nowhere, in fact, except to the mission church 
on Sunday and to the little Tenth Street grocery 
where Mrs. Morgan deals ; but to-day it was so 
hot and sultry that it was unbearable. There was 
no shade outside to speak of, and the children were 
in the house all the forenoon, and we had to keep 
a fire for Saturday’s baking (Mrs. Morgan cannot 
afford to buy baker’s stuff), and I suppose the 
children felt the heat too, for they were cross as 
bears, all of them, and Nora was simply dreadful. 
She teased Fred until he became so exasperated 


I 1 8 MA/S GER V^S VAC A TION. 

that he struck her, and then he had to be pun- 
ished. She was saucy to me, and even to Mrs. 
Morgan, and when, finally, I could stand it no 
longer, I shut her in my bedroom for half an 
hour — or supposed I did. But she jumped out 
of the window and ran away, and I had to spend 
an hour in the hot sun looking her up. After 
dinner I resolved that something must be done ; 
so I proposed to Mrs. Morgan that we take the 
horse cars and go out to the park to spend the 
afternoon, taking lunch and coming back in the 
cool of the evening. Of course she had a dress 
to finish, and could not go herself — but was 
willing the children should go if I cared to be 
bothered and could find anything decent for them 
to wear. I was so desperate about the heat and 
the quarreling that I really did n’t care much if 
they went in rags — just so we could get a breath 
of fresh air and cool water and shade. Of course 
the children were wild about going and behaved 
very decently while I got them dressed and the 
lunch packed. To tell the truth, mamma, we 
were not a very s0//is/i-\ooking company. Walter 
had to wear patched stockings, and the toes of 
Fred’s shoes were out, and as for Nora — well she 
does sometimes get on the funniest rigs you ever 


MARGERY^ S JOURNAL. II9 

saw, and to-day she was uncommonly grotesque 
— I think that ’s the right word. She had on 
gaiters a size too large, with patent leather tips, 
white cotton stockings cut down from her moth- 
er’s old ones, with legs so big that they hung 
in great wrinkles on her. Add to this a green 
and yellow calico skirt surmounted by a comical 
little black jersey and a pink slat sunbonnet, and 
I chink you ’ll agree with me that her dress was, 
to say the least, “ rather pronounced,” as Harry 
calls it. When I had first decided to go I laid out 
my clothes so that I could dress quickly after the 
children were ready, and when I went into my 
room after surveying the party I was to accom- 
pany, I burst out laughing in spite of heat and 
everything else : for actually, mother, I had laid 
out my prettiest white mull with its lace-trimmed 
flounces and sash of pale blue surah ! What pos- 
sessed me to bring these things along I ’m sure I 
cannot tell. Well ! I put them back again with 
a great, wicked sigh, and pulled out that ugly 
striped seersucker with a jerk — I’m going to 
tell the whole dreadful truth, mamma — and put 
it quickly on for fear my courage would fail me. 
Then I took my last spring’s school hat and tore 
off the wreath of daisies and tied a dark brown 


120 


MARGERV^S VACATION. 


ribbon around the crown, snatched a pair of 
shabby lisle gloves and a brown veil, and went 
forth to escort my party. 

Mrs. Morgan looked up from her work as I 
came out, and such a queer, shocked expression 
came into her face ! She looked first at me, 
then at Nora, then at Fred’s toes and Walter’s 
knees, and the tears sprang to her eyes — actually 
tears, mamma — and she is usually so proud and 
reserved. 

“O Margery,” she said, “this is too bad! I 
ought not to let you do it.” 

That took all the crossness out of me, and I 
just ran up and kissed her before I thought. 

“ Please don’t,” I said ; “ I don’t care a bit — 
not one single bit. It ’s all a jolly piece of fun, 
and we ’ll have a lovely time.” 

I did not mean to stretch the truth, for I did 
intend to have a jolly time. Maybe it was cow- 
ardly in me, but when I was out of Mrs. Morgan’s 
sight I tied the veil over my hat so as to hide 
my face, for we had to go quite through the city, 
you know, and I did not know whom I might 
meet. Sure enough, we had been in the car but 
a few moments when it was hailed, and there was 
a sound of gay laughter and a flutter of ribbons 


MARGERY'S JOURNAL. 


121 


and white muslin, and who should come in but 
Belle Bowman and her cousin, Grace Austin, — 
you remember Grace ; she visited Belle last 
winter, — and I gathered from their conversation 
that Belle was spending the summer with her 
at their country place, and they were in to^n for 
a day’s shopping. You remember I always liked 
Belle — though some of the girls thought her 
rather “stuck-up” as they called it; but she 
was bright and witty, and seemed to take quite 
a fancy to me. I suppose she flattered me ; at 
any rate she used to talk to the other girls about 
my perfect taste in dress and all that. The only 
thing I really had against her was that she did 
not seem cordial to Gertrude. We were the 
only other persons in the car, and when the girls 
had deposited their fare and settled their flounces, 
and smoothed the stray wrinkles out of their 
gloves and twisted their bracelets once or twice 
around, they looked at us, nudged each other, and 
began to laugh. I felt the blood creeping into 
my face, and was just mean enough to think how 
lucky I was to have on a veil. 

“ Even the humble walks of life have their 
round of gayety and dissipation. I judge from 
the looks of that modest lunch basket that our 


122 


MARGERY^ S VACATION, 


somewhat overdressed neighbors are about to 
indulge in the extravagance of an excursion to 
the park.” This from Belle in a pretended under- 
tone behind her fan, but she must have known it 
was perfectly audible to us. Grace tittered and 
nodde^d, and Belle went on : — 

“ Would n’t you like a peep into that basket } 
I fancy I catch even now the delicate aroma of 
corned beef and bologna, and in my mind’s eye 
I see primitive slabs of gingerbread and unlimited 
slices of dark bread and butter.” 

“ Be careful,” said Grace, between her giggles ; 
“they ’ll hear you.” 

“ They would n’t know enough to understand 
me if they did,” answered Belle, with a sneer; 
“ besides, the car makes too much noise ; and, 
anyway, I don’t care much if they do ! ” 

The boys were too much absorbed looking out 
the windows to notice what was going on inside, 
but Nora, attracted, I suppose, by their fine dress 
and jewelry, had scarcely taken her eyes from them 
since their entrance, and I knew by the flash of 
her eye that she had understood enough to know 
that we were being ridiculed ; she is unusually 
penetrating for her age, anyhow. By this time 
the “Old Adam” had risen pretty high in me. 


MARGERY^ S JOURNAL. 


123 


and I was just wondering if I could stand it until 
they got out, when Belle put the capsheaf on by 
remarking, this time in a tone of unmistakable 
distinctness, looking at my feet : — 

“ Don’t you think French kid boots a little out 
of place in such surroundings ? ” Then, changing 
her glance from me to Nora, “ And, by the way, 
I see white stockings are again in fashion, and 
are worn easy fitting ; and that reminds me that 
I saw in the fashion notes the other day that a 
jersey is now considered an indispensable part of 
every lady’s wardrobe.” 

When I saw her turning on Nora, I determined 
to stand it no longer and began untying my veil, 
but Nora’s Irish was now fully up, and she was 
quicker than I. Jumping from her seat she 
faced her tormentor with blazing eyes and shook 
her small, freckled fist full in her face. 

“ Thin, I tell yez to yer face that ye ’re no lady 
at all, if ye have got on fine clothes ; an’ whin the 
‘fires of purgatory get ye, ye ’ll be afther wishin’ 
for even a pair of ould white stockings to kiver 
the naked legs o’ ye.” 

“ O Belle, I told you they ’d hear ! ” said Grace, 
half frightened and really ashamed. 

As for Belle, when she recovered from her first 


124 


MARGERY^ S VACATION. 


astonishment, she only sneered again and said 
tauntingly : — 

'‘What a fierce little termagant it is, and so 
refreshingly Irish ! ” 

By this time I had off my veil, and taking 
Nora by the arm made her sit down, while I 
turned to Belle and said with my politest bow, — 

“ Good-afternoon, Miss Bowman. This meeting 
is quite unexpected, but I see that your reputation 
as a refined humorist is well sustained.” (You 
see, I had studied this speech all out while I sat 
under the veil. I wanted for once in my life to 
be sarcastic, and I thought as hard as I could 
of something that would sound like Harry or 
Gertrude.) 

O mother, mother! if you just could have seen 
Belle’s face when she recognized me ! She turned 
white and then red, and gave a little scream of 
surprise. 

“ Why, Margery Mayne I Of all things ! I 
thought you were in Colorado I Why, what on 
earth ! How came you here ? What can it 
mean } ” 

“ I don’t know that any explanations are neces- 
sary, and if they were, I should scarcely give 
them to you under the circumstances,” I said. 


MARGERY^ S JOURNAL, 


125 


“But, Margery, I can’t in any possible way 
understand. Of course if I had known it was 
you ” — 

“ Don’t apologize, I beg of you ; you only make 
a bad matter very much worse. People need 
veils, I see, sometimes, to thoroughly become 
acquainted with their friends,” trying my best 
to be sarcastic, and nearly ready to cry in spite 
of myself. Just here Grace pulled the bell rope. 
“See, Belle, we get out here, don’t we.^” I knew 
they had two or three blocks more, but I was glad 
to have them walk in the hot sun. It was only 
an excuse to slink away, you see. 

“ Well, good-by. Miss Mayne ! ” Belle said as she 
rose ; “ I am sorry we must part after such a brief 
reunion. It was, as you say, quite unexpected.” 

Andy I hope you understand,” I retorted, 
“that as friends we part forever ! ” 

“ Oh, certainly ! I am sure I never had any 
affinity for ladies in ‘ reduced circumstances ’ ; ” 
and with this parting shot she was gone. 

Of course all the pleasure of the afternoon 
was spoiled for me ; but the children had a good 
time in spite of our little scene, and I made them 
promise not to tell Mrs. Morgan. I took them to 
a little out-of-the-way restaurant and treated them 


126 


MARGERY^ S VACATION. 


to ice cream and cake, and bought each of them a 
toy balloon and a bag of candy, and was otherwise 
recklessly extravagant with them, for I doubted 
my having courage to come again ; besides, we 
don’t often get time. 

But, O mother, mother, mother ! I never in all 
my life felt so wicked. That ’s the worst of it. 
If it is so hard to bear when I am only playing at 
poverty, what would it be to be really in it } If, 
as the Bible says, the rich shall hardly enter into 
the kingdom of heaven, I don’t see how the 
poor can stand a ghost of a chance. Oh, dear ! 
the clock is striking eleven, and my head aches so 
I can hardly see. It will be dreadful hard work 
to say my prayers to-night, mother ; but I ’ll try. 
How I do wish you were here — if only for five 
little minutes ! 

Some people do not believe in special prov- 
idences ; but I wonder what they would call the 
something that made Margery’s Bible, which she 
opened at random, fall open at the following 
passages : — 

“ He is despised and rejected of men, a man of 
sorrows, and acquainted with grief. ... He was 
oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not 
his mouth.” 


MAEGEIiY’S JOURNAL. 


127 


Margery’s cheeks burned. She wished she had 
not tried so hard to be sarcastic. She read on 
and on through the beautiful sixty-third and sixty- 
fourth chapters of Isaiah : — “For the Lord hath 
called thee as a woman forsaken and grieved in 
spirit. . . . O thou afflicted, tossed with tempest, 
and not comforted, behold, I will lay thy stones 
with fair colors, and lay thy foundations with 
sapphires . . . and great shall be the peace of 
thy children. ... No weapon that is formed 
against thee shall prosper ; and every tongue that 
shall rise against thee in judgment thou shalt 
condemn.” 

“If that means anybody,” thought Margery, 
“surely it must mean Mrs. Morgan. Surely he 
is the God of the poor.” 

Day by day, through all Margery’s unusual 
experiences, light was shining more and more 
upon the Word of God. The Bible was becoming 
a strange, new reality to her. To be a Christian 
meant something more intensely practical than 
she had ever imagined. She laid down the Book 
in softened mood and found it not hard to pray. 
And the burden of her prayer was for sore-hearted 
Mrs. Morgan, who had comfort so near and did 
not seem to know it. 


r 


CHAPTER X. 

Margery’s sunday-school class. 

1\ /r ARGERY had been regular in her attend- 
ance at the Tenth Street Mission Chapel, 
the boys always accompanying her, much to their 
enjoyment and the relief of their mother, who 
looked forward to these quiet Sabbath afternoons 
alone with a degree of pleasure for which 
she sometimes reproached herself as being un- 
motherly. This time was usually devoted to 
Gertrude’s weekly letter, as scarcely a moment 
could be found for that purpose during the busy 
week. Many of the regular assistants in the 
Sunday-school were absent during the summer 
months, and the superintendent was glad after a 
Sabbath or two to press Margery into the service. 
She demurred a good deal at first, having never 
felt old enough or wise enough to be a teacher — 
but, for the matter of that, what good teacher 
ever does } But when they proposed giving her 
the class to which Walter and Fred belonged, and 
their entreaties were added to those of the super- 
intendent, she yielded. 


126 


MARGERY'S SUNDAY-SCHOOL CLASS, 129 ' 

The class consisted of six boys between the 
ages of six and ten, Fred being admitted because 
he did not wish to separate from Walter. Among 
them was the irrepressible Bob Stark, whose 
musical achievements have been related in a pre- 
vious chapter. This Bob was conspicuous for a 
crown of rampant' red hair, which no brush or 
comb, no water or oil, had ever been able to sub- 
due ; and although styles of hair dressing and 
cutting might come and go, our friend Bob’s 
always remained d, la pompadour. In the matter 
of freckles, Nora’s face was comparatively spot- 
less when compared with his, and his small blue 
eyes, separated from each other by the thinnest 
possible slice of a nose, gave his face a crafty 
look which boded ill for his future. Between him 
and Nora an intimacy had arisen which gave Mar- 
gery no small trouble, for Nora’s methods of 
inventing mischief were ample enough without 
any additions from Bob’s apparently inexhaustible 
stock. It must be confessed that Margery’s heart 
misgave her when she saw that Bob was to be one 
of her pupils. She resolved at once to try to 
make the lesson so entertaining that he would be 
compelled to forget his mischief in his interest in 
the subject. On the first Sunday of her teaching 


130 


MARGERY'S VACATION. 


the lesson was about the calling of Samuel, and 
being of course familiar with it herself, and having 
previously told the story to Walter and Fred, 
she entered into its teaching with a good deal of 
confidence. That all the class might be familiar 
with the lesson text, she first read it to them from 
her Bible, making an occasional explanatory re- 
mark as she went on. Seemingly, Bob was pay- 
ing strict attention to her words ; really, he was 
deep in calculations as to how long it would take 
a big black bug, which he had discovered on 
Margery’s dress, at the speed and in the direction 
it was now going, to reach her neck, and was 
wondering how high she would jump, and if she 
would scream as Maggie Dart did when he 
dropped a caterpillar down her neck. 

‘‘And now,” said Margery, closing her Bible, 
“ I will ask you a few questions to see how well 
you remember what I have read. Jim, who was 
Samuel living with ? ” 

“Eli!” 

“Very good. And who was Eli } ” 

“ An old man, who had some bad children,” 
said Walter. 

“Yes; but what did he do.^* What was his 
office .? Will Bob tell me > ” 


MARGERY^ S SUNDAY-SCHOOL CLASS. 131 

Bob started at the sound of his name (the bug 
had changed its course and was taking a very 
roundabout way to Margery’s neck). 

“Ma’am } ” he said. 

“ What was Eli’s office ? ” 

“ I never knowed he run for office, ma’am.” 

Margery bit her lips, half amused, half vexed. 
“He was a priest of the Lord,” she said, “some- 
thing like our ministers nowadays, you know, 
and Samuel lived with him.” 

“My! I'd hated to be in Sam’s place,” said 
Bob fervently. 

To change the subject quickly and not appear 
to notice Bob’s last remark, she asked him the 
first question that came to mind. 

“ When Samuel heard his name called, why did 
he get up and go to Eli ? ” 

“ I s’pose ’cause he was afeared he ’d get licked 
if he laid abed any longer 1 ” 

Of course the class tittered, and Margery gave 
up questioning Bob Stark for that day, and he 
was left to undisturbed contemplation of the bug, 
which crawled as high as Margery’s collar and 
then tumbled ingloriously to the floor. 

Margery resolved to visit Bob in his home the 
very next week. She had read in Sunday-school 


132 


MARGERY'S VACATIOAt. 


papers and heard it said in Sunday-school conven- 
tions, that this was the unfailing remedy for all 
Sunday-school class maladies ; and in her imagi- 
nation she saw Bob on the next Sunday not only 
giving rapt attention to the lesson, but astonishing 
the rest of the class by his discreet replies to her 
questions, 

Alas for poor Margery’s enthusiasm ! She 
found Mrs. Stark up to her elbows in the wash- 
tub, in a hot, steaming kitchen, with Bob busy 
at the wringer, and three smaller children, in 
various conditions of dirt and disordered apparel, 
groveling on the sloppy floor. The door was open 
into the adjoining room, — the only other room 
in the house, — which presented a not very in- 
viting appearance. Unmade beds with straw 
scattered on the floor, cast-off garments thrown 
carelessly over chairs, heaps of soiled clothing 
awaiting the wash, and in the midst of all this 
confusion an old crib in which lay a six-month- 
old baby, grasping in its fist a molasses-smeared 
crust of bread, and screaming at the top of its 
voice, while the flies took undisputed possession 
of its lunch and wandered at will over its hot, 
sticky face. 

Now, my dear girls, I know what you will 


MARGERY^ S SUNDAY-SCHOOL CLASS. I33 

expect me to relate ; and the same thing flashed 
through Margery’s mind as she stood bewildered 
at the kitchen door, not having been able to 
make her knock heard in front by reason of the 
baby’s cries. It occurred to her then, I say, 
that in accordance with all the stories of good 
girls she had ever read, she ought to go immedi- 
ately into that dreadful room and take that 
sticky, ill-smelling baby in her arms, clasp it to 
her breast, and hush it in tender tones, till it 
dropped off by some miracle of animal magnetism 
into a sound and refreshing sleep, from which 
neither flies nor the fumes of hot, boiling suds 
could arouse it. Then she should have gathered 
the motley group in the kitchen about her, etc. 
etc. Yes, she felt that theoretically this was her 
proper course — but — but ! — she had not the 
least idea how to begin ; and besides she was 
not a storybook girl, but a very human girl, 
with little experience of the world, and truth 
compels me to relate that what she really did 
was this : — 

She stood blushing in the open doorway, and 
stammered out an introduction to Mrs. Stark, — 
for Bob only grinned and made fantastic motions 
with the wringer in recognition of her presence,— 


134 


MARGERY^ S VACATION, 


and said that, as she was Bob’s Sunday-school 
teacher, she thought she would like to be ac- 
quainted with his mother. Whereupon Mrs. 
Stark drew her red arms from the suds and 
wiped the foam from first one and then the other, 
took up a corner of her apron to mop the per- 
spiration from her face, and- said she was sure 
she was right glad to meet her, and if she could 
get in for the dirt, would she be pleased to “ come 
in and take a cheer ? ” 

But Margery, not seeing any “cheer” handy, 
but seeing plenty of the other article mentioned, 
and thinking dubiously of her fresh cambric dress, 
which she had spent a half-hour that morning in 
ironing, stammered out some excuse and said she 
would call again when Mrs. Stark was not so 
busy. And Mrs. Stark looked grim, and said 
that if Margery knew when that time ’d come, 
she knowed more ’n she ever expected to, an’ if 
she had anything to say, she ’d better come in 
an’ say it now. Poor Margery said she had no- 
thing especial to say. She only wanted to take 
an interest in her scholars, and she thought per- 
haps Mrs. Stark would be able to help Bob about 
his Sunday-school lesson, and she had brought 
him a card with next Sunday’s Golden Text, and 


MAIiGEJ^Y^S SUNDAY-SCHOOL CLASS. 1 35 

hoped he would learn it ; and she asked if the 
baby was sick. 

Mrs. Stark said, No ; it mostly yelled on wash- 
days a good deal ; but crying was good for chil- 
dren’s lungs, an’ she ’d got used to it, an’ did n’t 
mind it. And then Margery beat an inglorious 
retreat, with the baby’s voice of lamentation 
sounding accusingly in her ears. 

The next Sunday she went to her charge with 
a heavy heart. So keen was her sense of failure 
in her visit to Bob’s home that she half expected 
him to be unusually provoking when they next 
met. But to her astonishment he held the card 
she had given him in his hand, and, without 
waiting to be invited, rattled off the text, with 
an interpretation similar to that which he had 
given of “ Pull for the shore.” And although he 
made several quite original remarks in the course 
of the instruction, he did nothing unusually scan- 
dalous, and Margery felt encouraged. It was 
Fred who distinguished himself on this occasion. 
As the youngest member of the class, he had 
heretofore taken no very active part in the ex- 
ercises. In truth, Margery had been somewhat 
careful to address no direct questions to him, her 
experiences with him at home having been such 


136 


MARGERY^ S VACATION. 


as to assure her that his answer was likely to be 
of a quite uncertain character. To-day, in open- 
ing the lesson, she inquired : — 

“Can any one tell me the story we talked about 
last Sunday } ” 

Fred’s hand was the first one raised, and his 
face showed such eager interest that Margery 
ventured to try him ; whereupon he gave the 
following graphic account of the calling of 
Samuel : — 

“ Samyul was a good little boy that had a 
new coat every single year. He lived with the 
preacher and slept in a bed all by himself, ’cause 
there was n’t any other little boy to sleep with, 
I guess. So one night after he ’d said his prayers 
and gone to bed — this is the way he said his 
prayers” — Here Fred slid suddenly to his 
knees, clasped his hands, and gazed upward with 
his dark blue eyes, in a perfect imitation of the 
picture of the child Samuel, which Margery had 
shown him from the old Tract Society primer, 
which she discovered among his mother’s old 
books. Margery got him hastily back to his 
seat. 

“ There, Fred, you need not show us ; only tell 
us about it” 


MARGERY^ S SUNDAY-SCHOOL CLASS. I37 

“ Well, after he ’d gone to bed and the lamp 
was burning yet, he heard somebody holler, 

‘ Samyul, Samyul ! ’ and he s’posed of course 
’t was Eli, — that was the minister he lived with, 
you know, — and so he jumped out of bed quick 
as ‘ scat ’ and ran into Eli’s bedroom and said, 

‘ Sir ? ’ and Eli said, ‘ I did n’t call you ; go back 
to bed.’ So he went back to bed, and in a min- 
ute he heard somebody call again : ‘ Samyul ! O 
Samyul ! ’ and he jumped up and went to Eli 
again ; and Eli said, ‘ I tell you I did n’t call you. 
Go, stay in bed ! ’ Well, and so he heard it again 
and he went and told Eli : ‘Yes, you did call me, 
and I ’d like to know what you want.’ Then Eli 
told him. No, he did n’t, and that it must have 
been God that called him ; and he told him if he 
heard it again to tell God he was there. So he 
went to bed, and, sure enough, he heard it again, 
and he was n’t a mite afraid, ’cause he ’d been a 
good boy all day, and so he did n’t stick his head 
under the bedclothes, but he just said, ‘All right, 
God, I ’m here ! ’ And then God told him a 
whole lot of things to tell Eli, and in the morning 
he told him, and did n’t tell no lies about it 
neither — and — and — I guess that’s all.” 

If Margery felt a little shocked at this every- 


1 3 8 maj^ ger y's vac a tion, 

day rendering of the story, she could not help 
being pleased that he had remembered it so well ; 
and certainly the class gave him undivided atten- 
tion. That he did not mean to be irreverent she 
was sure ; and perhaps, after all, she was not so 
badly shocked, for she had had some experience 
with Ted and Dot. 


CHAPTER XL 


APPLIED THEOLOGY. 

T TELL ye there ain’t nobody nor nothin’ 
^ could bamboozle me into bein’ good, an’ if 
you ain’t a bigger fool ’n I take ye fur, Bob Stark, 
you ’ll quit all this Sunday-school business afore 
they git you roped in amongst the pious set.” 

These somewhat startling remarks, in Maggie 
Dart’s high-keyed voice, came floating in at the 
open window, beside which Margery sat with her 
darning. In the few weeks of her residence with 
the Morgans, Margery had seen and heard enough 
of their next-door neighbor, Maggie Dart, to make 
her feel no surprise at any shocking thing she 
might utter. She had tried to keep Nora and 
the boys away from her as much as possible, and 
for the rest to pay no attention to her scandalous 
utterances, which were sometimes directed even 
against herself. But this open attack on one of 
her own charge, this shameless attempt to lure 
from the fold one of her own, — well, not lambs 
exactly ; certainly Bob Stark could hardly be that ; 
but one of her flock anyway, — could she, ought 


1 40 mar ger y^s va ca tion. 

she, to pass it unnoticed ? She looked out of 
the window ; Maggie was returning with a book in 
her hand. Bob and Nora — yes, and Walter and 
Fred too — gathered in an expectant row on the 
fence. What dreadful thing could she be going 
to show them } 

“ Look at this picter I Ve got,” the shrill voice 
went on ; “ it ’s in a book called ^Infunt Pi-ty ; or. 
The Me-mawrs of Nathan W. Dickerman. ’ Do you 
see ’im settin’ there lookin’ pious ? Reckon you 
could ever look that-a-way. Bob } ” And Maggie 
turned toward the waiting, group the portrait 
page of a book she had brought out of the house. 

Bob laughed until his eyes, always so crowded 
for space, disappeared almost entirely from view 
to make room for the gaping mouth, and his red 
hair glinted in the sun like jets of flame. 

“ I say, Mag, that ’s a good un. Looks a heap 
like me, don’t it, now ? Air ye r’al’y skeered o’ 
my gittin’ to look like that ? ” 

“ He ’s a pretty little boy anyway,” broke in 
Fred. “Is he sick.^” 

“Yes, sonny,” responded Maggie; “he’s sick; 
an’ he wants to be a angel. That ’s what our 
young friend Bob, here, wants to be too. I 
heard 'im sayin’ so jest a few minutes ago.” 



“ Look at this picture I have got.” 

Margery’s Vacation. Page 140. 





I 







« 



APPLIED THE OLOGY, 1 4 1 

“ Indade an’ a swate angil he ’d make,” chimed 
in Nora. “I’d give the eyes o’ me to see ’im 
holdin’ a harp in them black, gr’asy hands o’ his, 
an’ tryin’ to make a crown set straight on that 
standin’-up hair, ’dade an’ I would that ! ” 

“ I never ! ” cried Bob, his laugh changing to 
sudden rage. Nora always acted upon his temper 
like a match to gunpowder. “I never ’lowed I 
wanted to be an angil, an’ anybody ’t says I did 
is a liar an’ dar’s n’t back it ! ” 

“ Well, you was a-singin’ of it a spell ago,” said 
Maggie serenely ; “for I heard ye.” 

“ Singin’ and sayin’ ’s two diff’rent things,” 
growled Bob. “ I don’t want ter be ’n angil no 
more ’n you do, Maggie Dart!” 

“What do ye go to Sunday-school fur, then, 
an’ learn to sing them things and say Scriptur’ 
verses fur, then V 

“W’y, I like ter sing, ye see, an’ the tunes is 
purty, even ef ye don’t go much on the words. 
Fact is, I don’t pay much ’tention to the words, 
nohow — and Miss Margery, she do tell us some 
right interestin’ stories too. You’d think so yer- 
self, Maggie, I know. You ’re’s fond of stories 
as I be, any day. You used ter go yerself last 
winter. What made ye quit it ? ” 


142 


MARGERY'S VACATION. 


“Jest fur the very reason I Ve be’n a-recom- 
mendin’ you to quit fur. I wuz afeared I ’d git so 
good I ’d hev to die, an’ I ’lowed ef all them 
things they sung an’ said about heaven wuz true, 
I ’d ruther go ’most any place ’s there. 

“Take the singin’, fur instance. I never could 
sing nohow, no more ’n a turkey gobbler ; and I 
knowed I ’d jest be nagged through all etarnity, 
like they nagged me at Sunday-school — pokin’ a 
book in front of me, an’ a-sayin,’ ‘ Now, jest try, 
won’t ye, my dear } (’T always maddens me to be 
called my dear.) Everybody can sing if they ’ll 
only learn, and I ’m sure you must have a lovely 
voice’ — jest’s if I didn’t know taffy when I 
hearn it ! So they kep’ at me until I ’lowed if 
they oncet heerd my ‘ lovely voice ’ they ’d leave 
me alone after it ; an’ so one day I jest let out 
on ’em good an’ loud. The supyrintendunty he ’d 
jest be’n a-bangin’ his book an’ sayin’, ‘ Sing 
louder ; put a little sperrit into it ! ’ an’ so I ’lowed 
ef I was ever goin’ to take a hand, now was my 
chance; ’n’ so I sung. I got every word right, I 
know that ; I ’d heerd ’em so many times ’n’ won- 
dered what on airth they meant, that I ’d got ’em 
by heart. The teachers jumped nigh off ’n their 
feet, and the boys laughed ’n’ hollered, ’n’ all 


APPLIED THEOLOGY. 


143 


the girls giggled, and the supyrintendunt he 
craned ’is neck over to see who ’t was, an’ the 
organ stopped playin’, an’ then the supyrintend- 
unt, he says, kind o’ sheepish-like, ‘ Not quite so 
loud^ please ; you put a little too much sperrit 
into ’t this time ; but I guess that ’ll do fur to- 
day ; ’ an’ so he shet up ’is book ’n’ dismissed school. 
An’ my teacher, she says to me, — smilin’ a awful 
sickly smile, — ‘ I was real glad you tried to sing, 
Maggie ; but your voice is so strong, maybe you ’d 
better sing a little lower next time.’ After that 
they let me be, an’ stopped pokin’ singin’ books 
in front o’ me. Wuz you there. Bob } ” 

Bob was rolling on the ground with feet kicking 
the air in a convulsion of merriment. As soon 
as he could find his voice he picked himself up 
and answered : — 

No, Mag, I wuz n’t thar; but I’d give my 
new jackknife and popgun an’ throw in the chaw- 
gum ’t Tom Snider promised me to-morrer ef I 
could a-heerd ye done it ; ” and he went off in 
another convulsion, while Nora dug her toes in 
the sand and asked soberly : — 

“An’ sure, an’ don’t ye b’lave ye could trick 
the angils an’ saints the same fashion when ye 
got to heaven ? ” 


144 


MARGERY^ S VACATION, 


Maggie shook her head. 

I would n’t like to resk it. An’ besides, thar’ 
’s the harps. Why, I know an Italiyun boy thet 
plays a harp down town, an’ he says what with 
holdin’ the heavy thing an’ workin’ of it all day 
he ’s clean beat out every night, an’ ’is arms ache 
so he can’t sleep, an’ he says the continooal ^ purriy 
pum ’ of it next his head, so constant, makes him 
feel fairly luny sometimes. Now, jest think of 
keepin’ that up day an’ night forever — that ’s what 
it says, you know — ‘an’ praise ’im day an’ night,’ 
them ’s the very words. Besides, there ’s them 
gold streets an’ pearl gates : somebody ’s got to 
keep ’em clean and polished ; an’ I jest knowed 
ef I was there I ’d hev to be one of the scrubbin’ 
angils, — ’specially ’s I couldn’t sing, — an’ I hed 
enough o’ that with Miss Jarvis’ polished floors 
an’ plate glass last time I tried to live out. 

“So I got to studyin’ ef thar wa’ n’t mebbe 
some middle place fur poor folks to be kind o’ 
comfortable in when they died, but I could n’t 
hear o’ none. So I reckoned I would n’t have no 
heavin in mine, an’ I quit school.” 

“Did ye begin to show signs o’ how good ye 
was a-gettin ’ } How did ye act ? I ’d like to 
’ave knowed ye about thet time.” 


applied theology, i 45 

Maggie grinned. 

“No; I didn’t say’s I was gettiri good — I 
wuz only af eared I would, that ’s all ; but I wuz 
only chaffin’, Bob. The real reason I quit was 
becoz I ’d read all the’r books through. That ’s 
all I went fur in the first place, jest to git books 
to read. When some the other churches up town 
gits another worn-out old lib’ry it wants to git 
shet of, ’n’ sends it out here, I ’m a-goin’ ag’in. 
Some the books is awful silly ’n’ boshy, but 
there ’s some right good stories among ’em, an’ 
readin’ ’s kind o’ scarce ’t our house. Pop says 
when he gits our house all paid fur he ’ll git me 
some books an’ mebbe we kin take a paper.” 

“ Where did you get that book with the pretty 
little boy in it ” asked Fred. 

“ This } The ‘ Infunt P^'-ty,’ you mean } Oh, 
a lady give it to me. She was one o’ my teachers 
in the Sunday-school. You see, we had awful 
hard work to keep a teacher fur our class ; some 
said ’t was ’cause the gals acted so mean it wor- 
ried ’em all out.” 

“ I belave it,” interpolated Nora. “ If you was 
in the class, I doubt me if the blissid Vargin 
herself could have stood it with ye many wakes.” 

“ I ’d ’a’ liked to try ’er,” responded Maggie 


146 MARGERY'S VACATION, 

irreverently; “but, as I was sayin’, we had a 
change frequent, an’ this one that give me the 
book tried the hardest of any of ’em to stick it 
out. She tuk a heap o’ trouble fur us anyway. 
She druv out in her kerridge one day an’ went 
round to see all her scholars. When she come 
to our house I wuz a-settin’ down finishin’ a 
novel ’t pop ’d brought me — pop ’s awful good 
about that ; he brings me all he can get hold of. 
Well, this was a number one story. It was ‘The 
Ha’nted House ; or. The Myst’ry of Beechwood.’ 
An’ I got so int’rusted in it that I ’d set right 
down an’ left the dinner dishes a-standin’ an’ the 
floor wa’ n’t swep’ an’ things did nt look none 
too genteel, I reckon. Well, she come in, an’ she 
looked sort o’ disgusted like underneath the smile 
she ’lowed she ’d ought ’er put on fur me, an’ I 
said, ‘ Will you take a cheer, ma’am } I ain’t 
got things slicked up yet. I did n’t ’spect no 
comp’ny an’ so I thought I ’d read a spell first, 
an’ I hope you ’ll excuse the way things looks.’ 
I did n’t fergit my manners if I was taken by 
s’prise. An’ she says, ‘Certingly, I’ll excuse 
you, Maggie ; but don’t you think it better to 
always do the work first and read after it is 
done } ’ Well, I jest loved ’er fur that speech — 


APPLIED THEOLOGY, 


147 


liked it better 'n anything I ’d heerd 'er say, coz 
I knowed she meant it honest, an’ it wa’ n’t no 
taffy. I ’d got so used ter that sort o’ folks 
givin’ me taffy that I ’lowed to hear ’er say, 

‘ Oh, don’t ’poligize. Everything looks bee-yu^tiful 
here ; ’ an’ I was jest gittin’ ready to despise ’er 
fur lyin’ when she up an’ said that ; an’ I was so 
beat I did n’t even answer ’er fur a minute, an’ 
then I said I ’lowed p’r’aps ’t was the best way, 
but I ’d got int’rusted in my story ” — 

“ But what about the book with the pretty boy 
in it ” persisted Fred. 

“ I ’m a-comin’ to that ; ‘the longest way round 
’s the surest way hum’, you know, sonny.” 

“ But I don’t want to go home ; I want to hear 
about the boy.” 

“Jest hold on, then, till I tell ye. Well, an’ 
then she says, ‘I’m very glad you like to read, 
Maggie. May I see your book ? ’ An’ so I give 
it to ’er, and she looked at the title an’ turned 
over the leaves a spell an’ kind o’ scowled like 
an’ shook ’er head, an’ says she, ‘ I hate to see ye 
wastin’ time on such stuff as this, Maggie. You 
ought to have something more improvin’ to the 
mind.’ So then I told ’er that I had to read 
whatever I could git, an’ I s’posed ‘ beggars must 


148 


MARGERY'S VACATION. 


n’t be choosers,’ an’ I did n’t see but what ’t was 
a right good story ; an’ she said ’t wa’ n’t true, 
not a word of it, an’ such things gave the young 
' false impressions of life ’ ; them was her very 
words ; I dun ’no’ what they mean, but I remem- 
bered ’em ’coz they was high-soundin’ an’ booky. 
An’ she said she had some right good stories at 
home thet wuz true and had good morrils, an’ ef 
I ’d like ’em she ’d send ’em to me ; an’ so she 
did, an’ this is one of ’em. She sent me four — 
‘ Infunt P^-ty ’ an’ ‘ Aunt Sally ’ — that was about 
a slave woman down south ’t let ’em beat ’er ’n’ 
cuff ’er ’n’ knock ’er roun’, an’ never made no 
fuss ’coz she ‘loved Jesus’; an’ I ’lowed if I’d 
have to be that a-way that was another reason 
I did n’t want to be good ; an’ then there was 
‘Six Months in a Convent’ That was prime! 
most as good as a detective story. And then 
there was a memawr of somebody else — I dis- 
remember the name ; but ’t was about some little 
gal that never did nothin’ wrong and did n’t 
talk about much of anything else but how she 
‘loved Jesus,’ an’ how sorry she was fur her 
sins. I ’lowed ef she was always so good I did 
n’t see what she had to be sorry fur, an’ so I 
asked the lady about it when she come ag’in, an’ 


APPLIED THEOLOGY. 


149 


she said, why, of course everybody had to be 
sorry fur their sins. An’ I said, ‘ But, ’cordin’ to 
the book, that little gal did n’t have none.’ An’ 
she said as how we wuz all born in sin, an’ asked 
me ef I had n’t got fur enough in the cat’chism 
to learn that 

‘ In Adam’s fall 
We sinnid all.’ 

(She ’d give me a Tract Primer with that in it 
afore.) So I thought if we was all sinners, 
whether we ’d done anything wrong or not, I 
might ’s well have some o’ the game ’s the name. 
An’ there ’s a heap o’ fun to be got out o’ sinnin’, 
hain’t there. Bob } ” 

“Bet yer life,” responded Bob, grinning. 

Margery had listened to the conversation thus 
far with “ conflicting emotions,” as the books say. 
She was shocked, amused, astonished. Shockingly 
irreverent as many of Maggie’s utterances seemed 
to her, there was yet an irresistible drollery in her 
remarks that appealed strongly to her own sense 
of humor. If the truth must be told, she laughed 
almost as heartily at the episode of Maggie’s 
musical exhibition as did even Bob himself — 
rebuking herself afterward that she was not more 
impressed by the malicious mischief which she 


I 5 O MA/^ GER y^S VAC A TION. 

knew had been the real motive of Maggie’s 
exploit. Her astonishment was at the revelation 
of her own character which Maggie had thus 
unconsciously made. That this rude, uncouth 

girl, who had seemed to her without one redeem- 

♦ 

ing trait of mind or character, should care to read 
anything, would have been in itself a surprise. 
But she had shown that a love for reading was 
almost a passion with her. She was willing to 
endure the restraint of a Sunday-school which 
she hated for the sake of books to read. Mar- 
gery thought at once of the public library, and 
wondered if Maggie knew about it. In her 
account of her teacher’s first call, two things 
struck Margery with such force that she scarcely 
knew at which to wonder most. The first was 
that the girl had pride enough to be ashamed of 
a disorderly house. The second was the innate 
love of truth which compelled her admiration of 
her teacher’s frank rebuke. Surely this ignorant 
girl had qualities of mind and heart not to be 
despised. Margery resolved to talk to mamma 
about her in the diary that night. In the mean- 
time the conversation was taking such a drift 
that she thought it best to call her charges away. 
She felt that none of them needed to be confirmed 


APPLIED THEOLOGY, I51 

in their belief of the attractiveness of sin. So, 
without letting them know that she had overheard 
them, she contrived to disperse the assembly and 
put an end to this somewhat novel theological 
discussion. 

“Margery,” said Fred that night as they were 
making ready for bed, “do all good little boys 
have to be sick and die ? ” 

“ Why, no, Fred ; of course not. Who put that 
notion into your head ^ ” asked Margery inno- 
cently. 

“ Maggie Dart said so ; she showed us a picture 
of a pretty little boy that had to die because he 
was good and loved Jesus. He was in bed and he 
looked some like the picture of Samuel in the 
Tract Primer book.” 

“ Well, Samuel was a good boy, and he did n’t 
die. He lived to be a real old man,” interposed 
Walter. 

“Yes, indeed, he did,” said Margery, thankful 
for help from such an unexpected quarter ; “ he 
lived a long and very useful life. People who are 
good are apt to live much longer than those who 
are wicked. I have heard my father say that 
often, and there is a verse in the Bible about it 
that I will find for you to-morrow. We can have 


152 


MARGERY^ S VACATION. 


it for one of our class verses, and then Bob Stark 
can learn it too.” 

“ Why do you want Bob to know it ? ” asked 
Walter. 

Because he has, perhaps, heard Maggie say 
the same foolish things that you have, and I want 
him to know that it is not true. A good many 
people talk that way, but they do not really 
believe it. It is only an excuse for not being 
good, and I think it a very cowardly one too.” 

‘‘Why do good people live longer than bad 
ones pursued Fred. (Gertrude used to declare 
that in Fred’s mental composition there was at 
least ninety per cent of why.) 

“ Can you not think of any reasons yourselves.?” 

There was a pause, and then, as usual, Fred 
was first to answer. 

“Because, if they ’re good, the policeman won’t 
get them and they won’t be hung ! ” 

“ Pshaw ! ” said Walter, who, when left behind, 
always felt disposed to pick flaws in P'red’s 
answers, “all bad folks don’t get hung — only a 
very few of them. Do they, Margery.?” 

“No,” said Margery, laughing; “neither do all 
bad people die young. Perhaps you can think of 
another reason, Walter,” 


APPLIED THEOLOGY, 


153 


“Yes,” said Walter deliberately I was just 
going to tell one that I had thought of. Bad peo- 
ple are very apt to drink whiskey and use tobacco, 
and our hygiene says that they are slow poisons 
and very bad for the human body — especially the 
stomach and the brain. It says ” — 

“ Yes,” interrupted Fred excitedly, “that’s so. 
My teacher says the alcohol just sucks up every 
bit of water there is in you, and makes your heart 
go jumping just like that,” illustrating by a series 
of rapid thumps upon his chest in the supposed 
region of his heart. 

“ Well, can’t you wait till I get done talking, 
before you put in ” 

“ It takes you so awful long that I can’t get a 
chance to say anything, hardly, at all.” 

“ Don’t quarrel about it, boys. Walter’s reason 
was a very good one. People who try to do what 
is right take the best care they can of their bodies. 
While wicked people sit up late at night, drinking 
and carousing, they are taking sweet sleep in 
their nice clean beds — just as you are going to do 
now.” And Margery fastened the last button of 
Fred’s gown and turned down the ^covers of the 
bed. “ I will find the verse for you to-morrow, 
and you can tell it to Bob — yes, and Maggie 
too, if you wish.” 


154 


MAI^GEFY^S VACATION. 


Walter shook his head. “ She would only laugh 
at me. She says she don’t go much on the Bible, 
and she makes lots of fun of us for going to Sun- 
day-school. She ’s trying her very best to get Bob 
not to go.” 

“ Well, we must try very hard to get him to stay 
then. Perhaps we can get Maggie to go. Will 
you help me try } ” 

“ It ’s no use. She says nobody can do that, 
and she don’t want to be good ” — 

“ Nor be ’n angel neither,” chimed in Fred. 

“ It is very silly and wicked for Maggie to talk 
that way, and I would n’t listen to her if I were 
you. Perhaps, though, she does not know any 
better, and we can find some way to help her. I 
will think about it to-night, and to-morrow we will 
talk it over together ; but now you must really 
go to sleep. Shall we say ‘ Our Father ’ now } ” 

“Just one thing more, Margery,” whispered 
Walter as she tucked in the cover ; “ don’t let 
Nora know any of our plans, or she ’ll tell Maggie 
and Bob every single word.” 


CHAPTER XII. 


MAGGIE DART. 

M ARGERY’S resolution to confide in her 
journal that night was changed into a 
decision to write a letter immediately to her 
mother, asking advice and help. Accordingly, as 
soon as the boys were in bed, she went to her 
room and wrote as follows 

“O mother mine ! I don’t believe Colorado was 
ever so far away as it is to-night. I need your 
help so much ! And it will take two whole weeks 
to get an answer to my letter, even if you are not 
traveling all over in out-of-the-way places, where 
letters can never get to you ; and in two weeks 
more, if something is not done, I think that 
dreadful girl will utterly ruin Nora and Bob and 
have a very bad effect even on Walter and Fred. 
I have spoken to you in my letters about her — 
Maggie Dart, I mean — the one who tried so 
hard to set the boys against me before I came. 
Well, she seems to watch me as close as a cat 

would a mouse, and whenever I have on a decent 
166 


MARGERY'S VACATION. 


156 

dress or a fresh ribbon, she makes grimaces at 
me and goes tiptoeing about the yard with her 
head in air, and holding up the skirt of her dirty 
calico dress in imitation of a fine lady putting on 
airs. This always makes the boys terribly angry, 
— for they take my part in everything, — and some- 
times I think she does it more to tease them than 
for anything else. Of course I don’t mind it for 
myself, — for I hope I ’m above letting an igno- 
rant girl like that disturb me, — but I ’m so afraid 
she ’ll set Bob and the rest of my class against 
me. She seems to have a good deal of influence 
over the neighborhood children. They are all 
afraid of her, and she amuses them besides — and 
I don’t wonder. She made me laugh to-day until 
I was ashamed of myself ; and yet she was saying 
most shocking things. Such a tongue as that 
girl has I never heard in my life.” 

Here followed a narration of Maggie’s conver- 
sation with the children, which is recorded in the 
preceding chapter. Then Margery continued : — 
If I could only get her over to my side, I 
should have nothing more to fear : for she is cer- 
tainly a ringleader among those I most wish to 
help ; but I have n’t an idea how to set about it. 
I feel almost afraid to try. If she ’s worried out 


MAGGIE DART. 


157 


and discouraged all those good women who have 
tried to help her, I don’t really see how a young, 
inexperienced girl like me can hope to do much 
with her. I have been thinking of what you 
said, about the key of love unlocking every human 
heart, if only we could find the keyhole ; but I ’m 
afraid, mother dear, that even if I do find the 
keyhole to Maggie’s heart, the lock will be so 
very rusty that it will take greater patience and 
strength than I possess to turn it. Nevertheless, 
I am going to try. The only thing I can possibly 
think of yet is to give her something to read. 
I can let one of the boys offer it to her, for I 
don’t think I ’d better try to talk much to her just 
yet, or make sudden advances, she seems so suspi- 
cious of me ; I don’t see why. And besides, to tell 
the truth, mother, I feel, someway, afraid of her 
— afraid of what she might say or do if she sus- 
pected that I was going to try to make her good, 
as she calls it ; or rather ‘ bamboozle ’ her into 
being good. Those were her very words. It ’s 
bad enough for the children to hear such uncouth 
language, to say nothing of her ideas. Oh, I ’ve 
just thought ! I have my Little Women with 
me. That will be just the thing to lend her. 
She can’t help liking it, and as she keeps house 


1 5 8 MA/i GER S VA CA TION. 

% 

for her father, she will be all the more interested 
in their housekeeping trials. I think I did not 
tell you that her mother is dead and she has no 
brothers or sisters. She and her father live alone 
in a little two-room house next door to Mrs. 
Morgan. He is a bricklayer and goes to work 
early in the morning, takes his dinner with him, 
and does not get home until nearly dark. That 
gives her a whole long day to plan mischief, when 
she has nothing to read. I have never been in 
the house, but from the looks of the back yard 
and her own person, I fancy she does n^t give 
much time to her housekeeping. She keeps the 
front yard clean as anybody’s, and has a flower 
bed in it which she tends with great care. She 
is a curious girl, anyway, and interests me in 
spite of myself. Now, mother, if you can help 
your rattle-brained Margery to the least little bit 
of a useful idea about finding that keyhole, I wish, 
if it were not so public, that you would tele- 
graph it ! . . . 

P. S. I had thought about taking her to 
the public library some time, if I could get well 
enough acquainted with her. She could get plenty 
of good reading there. Would not that be a good 
plan ? I also forgot to tell you her age. She is 


MAGGIE DART. 1 59 

fourteen, and very large of her age ; taller even 
than I am, and so awkward and gawky!'' 

It was Margery’s way whenever she entertained 
a new plan of any sort to act upon it imme- 
diately, if possible. Accordingly she managed a 
short conference with the boys next morning, 
while their dressing was in progress, in order 
that the subject might not be broached after 
Nora’s arrival. 

She suggested her plan about the book, and 
Walter agreed to take it over to her immediately 
after breakfast. 

“Yes,” said Walter, in his grave, grown-up way, 
“ I think that is a very good plan, Margery ; for 
she told us yesterday that she went to Sunday- 
school once on purpose to get books to read.” 

“ Oh, take her the book with the story of 
Joseph, and Moses, and Samson, and all the rest 
of those nice old fellows!” chimed in Fred. “I 
know she ’d just love to hear how David knocked 
the old giant down with a sling shot, and then 
stood on top of him and slashed his old head off 
with a sword. Would n’t she, Walter ? " 

“ Oh, that ’s a boy’s story. She would not 
want that. Girls don’t care about sling shots and 
killing and such things.” 


i6o 


MARGERY^ S VACATION. 


“ Maggie does. I heard her tell Bob Stark one 
day that her ‘pop’ — that’s what she calls her 
father, you know — was going to bring her an 
awful nice story, with three murders in it. And 
I asked her what a murder meant, and she said 
it was killing somebody ; so I know she ’d like 
the David and G’liath story.” 

“ Say, Margery, are there any girls’ stories in 
the Bible } I never heard one ; but I suppose 
you pick out boys’ stories for us on purpose.” 

‘‘ Why, no, Walter ; I never thought about it. 
Y.es, of course there are girls’ stories. There ’s 
— let me see — there’s” — But Margery could 
not think of a single one. ‘‘ Well, I know there 
are some. I ’ll have to hunt them up.” 

“ Not for us, though,” said Walter. 

“Course not for us,” echoed Fred. 

“ I found that verse we were speaking of last 
night. It is this : ‘ With long life will I satisfy 
him, and shew him my salvation.’ This is one of 
the verses in a chapter about the godly man. It 
is a nice chapter. Perhaps we will read it some 
day. There is another verse which says, ‘ It shall 
not be well with the wicked, neither shall he pro- 
long his days.’ But come, now, I hear your 
mother calling, and we must go to breakfast. One 


MAGGIE DART. l6l 

thing more, boys : try to be as polite and kind 
to Maggie as you know how.” 

‘‘ Yes m!” 

“ All right, Margery ! ” 

When Walter returned from his errand about 
the book, Margery called him aside to learn his 
success. 

“ She was n’t very polite about it, I don’t think, 
Margery,” he said. “ I knocked at the door and 
she opened it and said, ‘ Hello, Prinky ! what do 
you want } ’ It makes me mad when she calls 
me Prinky y and I forgot all about my promising 
you to be polite, and so I said, ‘ I guess I don’t 
want anything now. I was going to give you a 
nice book to read, but if you have n’t any more 
manners than to call me names, I ’ll just take it 
home again ; ’ and I started to go ; but she called 
out, ‘ Oh, come back, Walter ! please do. I did n’t 
mean nothin’ only fun. I won’t call you that no 
more, never, if you let me see your book.’ And 
so by that time I ’d remembered what I promised 
you, and what I was taking her the book for, and 
so I went back and gave it to her. She grabbed 
it quick as lightning and began looking it through, 
and she says, ‘ It looks like an awful good story. 
Where ’d you get it } ’ When I said it was Miss 


i 62 


MAJ?GEJ?Y’S VACATION. 


Margery’s, she stuck her nose up in the air and 
says, ‘Did she tell you to bring it? ’Cause if 
she did, it ’ll be a pious story, sure, an’ I ain’t no 
use for them kind.’ ” 

“ Well, what did you say to that, Walter ? ” 

“ I did n’t know what to say at first, because 
you had asked me not to say that you sent it ; 
but I pretended not to notice her asking if 
you sent it, and I said, ‘I don’t believe it ’s the 
kind that you call pious stories, Maggie, because 
Miss Margery tells us a good many nice stories 
and none of her good children die when they ’re 
little, and some of them are real funny children 
too.’ ‘ Be they ? ’ she said. ‘ Well, that ’s queer. 
I ’lowed she was one of the church an’ prayer- 
meetin’ kind ; but I would n’t care if the Old 
Nick himself sent the book : if ’t was a good story 
I ’d read it. So I ’ll keep it an’ take good care 
of it.’ And just as I was going away she called 
out, ‘ You can tell Miss What-y e-may -call-’ er that 
I ’m much obleeged! ” 

Well done ! Walter. If you show as much 
judgment every time, you will be a great help to 
me in trying to make friends with Maggie. And 
you see she did not forget all her manners after 
all.” 


MAGGIE DART. 


163 

I suppose,” said Walter, swelling with pride at 
Margery’s praise, “if Fred had taken the book, he 
would have let the cat right out the bag the very 
first thing, and told her what we were trying 
to do.” 

“ Perhaps not. But you must remember that 
Fred is not as old as you are.” 

Encouraged by Maggie’s civil message of thanks 
to herself, Margery determined to make some 
excuse to call on the girl, and get acquainted with 
her by talking over the heroes and heroines of 
Little Women. From what she had heard of 
her love for books, she judged, rightly, that in two 
or three days, at most, she would have finished 
the story. The excuse offered itself in a very 
unexpected way, on the second day after the loan 
of the book. 

Maggie and Nora had indulged in one of their 
numerous quarrels across the fence, during which 
Nora, in a fit of Irish temper, had thrown a stone 
into her neighbor’s yard. The missile landed in 
the center of one of Maggie’s flower beds, break- 
ing off, at the root, a magnificent stalk of marigold 
in full bloom. This plant, the only one of its 
kind in the small garden, was the pride of Mag- 
gie’s heart, and nothing but Nora’s nimble legs 


164 


MARGERY^ S VACATION. 


saved her from prompt vengeance. Indeed, Nora 
was so frightened at Maggie’s angry threats that 
she scarcely ventured out of the house for the 
rest of the day, and glanced anxiously at the Dart 
cottage as she went swiftly by with her mother 
at night. 

Margery, though vexed with Nora and sorry for 
Maggie’s loss, yet could not help a secret feeling 
of exultation as she saw in the circumstance the 
desired opportunity to make friends with the 
strange, unapproachable girl. As soon as she 
could be spared for an hour from her duties, she 
took a car to the nearest greenhouse and returned 
with a large scarlet geranium in full bloom and a 
bouquet of various bright cut flowers. Armed 
with this peace offering she went after supper and 
knocked at Maggie’s door. Maggie started, and 
her face grew almost as red as the geranium, when 
she saw who her visitor was. As for Margery, 
her heart was beating violently, so anxious was 
she for the success of her mission and so helpless 
she felt in the presence of this sharp-tongued, 
ignorant girl. She controlled herself sufficiently, 
however, to say cordially : — 

“ Good-afternoon, Maggie. I have brought you 
a flower in the place of the one which Nora spoiled 


MAGGIE DART, 


165 

for you this morning. I was very sorry about it, 
for I know you worked hard to get your beds in 
such nice order, and I have admired your beauti- 
ful marigolds very much. I had almost a mind 
to beg some of you last Sunday to wear with my 
white dress.” 

It shall be given you in that same hour what ye 
shall speaky Margery had offered no formulated 
prayer for the teaching of her lips when she came 
upon this errand, but the errand was for the Mas- 
ter. It was In His Name that she offered this, 
her cup of cold water, to one of his ignorant and 
unfortunate ones. Her very feeling of self -distrust 
was the strongest possible appeal to his strength ; 
and has he not said, Before they cally I will 
answer'' f Had her words been prepared before- 
hand by the most skillful diplomat in the land, 
they could not better have accomplished her pur- 
pose. She had said to herself so often : “ If only 
I could understand her ; but she is so strange ! ” 
With the most intimate knowledge of her disposi- 
tion, Margery could not have reached Maggie’s 
heart more effectually. She had not come in a 
spirit of patronage to offer charity, but to make 
r epar ation for a wrong. She had praised Maggie’s 
flowers and noticed her care of them, and this 


1 66 MARGE R Y^S VA CA TION. 

went almost as straight to the mark as does the 
praise of a baby to its mother. She had not 
brought her a common flower, but a real green- 
house plant in an earthen pot, such as rich ladies 
kept in their conservatories. And, crowning 
honor of all, this rich girl, whom Maggie had 
thought so proud, had actually wished to wear her 
flowers ! Simple-hearted Margery did not know 
that the real cause of Maggie’s ridicule of herself 
was envy of the pretty clothes for which she 
secretly longed. 

“ Shall I set the pot on this stand ? ” continued 
Margery. “ It will look nicely there until you 
have time to set it out ; and if you will give me a 
cup of water I will put these other flowers in it. 
The sun was so hot that they began to droop a 
little before I could get them home.” 

Maggie had stood flushing and paling, not know- 
ing what to say. But now she found her voice. 

“ If ye please, ma’am,” she said, “it’s an awful 
pretty flower ; but I had n’t ought to take it, fur 
I was more to blame ’n Nora, I guess. I began 
pickin’ on her first, an’ I ’m the biggest, an’ I did 
it on purpose to make ’er mad ; an’ so I ought to 
take ther cons’quences, if they was any.” 

But Margery had already set the plant on a little 


MAGGIE DART. 


167 


pine stand by the window, and, without waiting 
for invitation from her confused hostess, had taken 
a chair beside it. It was her turn to be surprised 
now at Maggie’s frank confession, and, remember- 
ing the girl’s love of candor, she answered : — 

"“Perhaps you were some to blame, Maggie, 
but Nora ought not to let her temper get the 
better of her as she does, and maybe this will be 
a good lesson to you both ; but I want you to keep 
the flower. There is a barren spot in the bed 
where the marigold used to be that we shall none 
of us like to see, and the geranium will fill it 
nicely. Don’t take it up, but set it, pot and all, 
in the ground, and when the frost comes you can 
take it in the house and it will bloom all winter. 
You see, Maggie, we have almost as much pleasure 
from your flowers as you do yourself. Mrs. Mor- 
gan is too busy to tend flowers, but Walter and 
Fred are going to try next year to have a bed. 
Perhaps you can show them about it, if you will.” 

“ Indeed, I ’ll be glad to, miss ; and bein’ as ye 
put it that-a-way, I ’ll keep yer plant, an’ thank ye 
a thousand times. I never had no flowers half 
nor a quarter so pretty as this one.” And she 
went up to the stand and touched the leaves in 
a half-caressing manner, which touched Margery 


MARGERY^S VACATION. 


168 

strangely. Then, remembering the cut flowers, 
she fetched a blue tumbler, the pride of her scanty 
table furnishings, and filling it with water, gave 
it to Margery, who set the bouquet in the center 
of the little table where supper was waiting for 
Mr. Dart. 

“Flowers brighten a tea table I think,” she 
said as she did so, appearing not to notice the 
coarse, soiled cloth and disorderly arrangement of 
the table. 

The tea table" ! Maggie’s heart swelled with 
mingled pride and shame. Blushing hotly, she 
answered with characteristic frankness, — 

“ The flowers is awful pretty, but they make the 
tablecloth look too dirty to live. I ’d ought to 
’ave washed it to-day, but I wanted so awful bad 
to find out how Jo got on with the perfesser in 
that book o’ your ’n that I jest let it go. I ’m 
right sorry now, but there ’s no use cryin’ fur spilt 
milk.” 

“ Do you like Jo, then said Margery eagerly. 
“ I ’m so glad, for I like her best of all the folks 
in the story.” 

“ So do I, unless ’t is Laurie ; I like him a heap.” 

“Yes, Laurie was nice; but,” said Margery, 
rising, “ I see your father coming, and I know he 


MAGGIE DART. 


169 


will be hungry and want his supper right away, 
so I will go now ; but, if you will let me, I would 
like to come again and talk over the book with 
you.” 

“ I ’d be proud to have ye, if ye could take the 
trouble, ma’am ; and I ’ll have a slicker room for 
ye to set in too. ’T ain’t that I can’t keep house 
no better, but I don’t have much comp’ny an’ so 
I git careless like.” 

Margery made her adieus and went home feeling 
that she had made at least a beginning in winning 
Maggie’s friendship. If she had but known it, 
what she thought a beginning was in reality a 
complete conquest. The keyhole to Maggie’s 
heart was found, and Margery’s little golden key 
of love turned so noiselessly in the lock that she 
did not suspect its presence there. 


CHAPTER XIII. 


MARGERY AND MAGGIE. 

HEN next mending day came, Margery 



^ ^ filled her workbasket with stockings, put 
in mending cotton and darning needles, took her 
sun hat from the rack, and said to Mrs. Morgan : 

“ If you think the children will not bother you 
while I am gone, I will go over and sit with Maggie 
Dart a little while.” 

Mrs. Morgan elevated her brows slightly and 
smiled a curious little smile. 

“Oh, the children will be all right ; but what in 
the world can you want with that girl ? ” 

Margery laughed brightly as she said : — 

“ Oh, I have an engagement with her — a sort 
of literary symposiuniy as the big men call it. We 
are going to discuss our favorite characters in 
Little Women. I wish Gertrude was here to 
help, for I am not very literary myself.” 

“You are a queer girl, Margery, and Lm sure 
it is quite charitable for you to take an interest in 
all these ignorant people ; but I ’m afraid in this 


170 


MAJH GER V AND MAG GJE. 1 7 l 

case it will be labor lost. You are not the first 
who has tried to civilize Maggie Dart, and, so far, 
she has proved incorrigible. I would give any- 
thing to have the boys away from her influence. 
If you should succeed in taming her at all, you 
would incur the gratitude of the entire neighbor- 
hood.” 

Perhaps her reputation is worse than she 
really deserves. Mamma says that people who 
are too outspoken always make enemies. I have 
found out two good things about her already. 
She likes to read, and she is very fond of flowers.” 

“ Ye-es,” said Mrs. Morgan doubtfully, that 
is well enough as far as it goes.” But her face 
wore an expression of indulgent incredulity as 
Margery left the room, mending basket in hand. 

Any one looking in at the Dart cottage fifteen 
minutes later would have been forcibly impressed 
by the scene in the dingy little room. Margery, 
in a fresh blue-sprigged cambric dress and white 
apron, sat on a low box by the open window, with 
one hand and arm thrust deeply into a long, gray 
stocking, while the other deftly guided the shining 
needle that glanced in and out among the threads 
of gray, which stretched like prison bars across 
the jagged rent. Her curls, loosely confined at the 


172 


MARGERY^ S VACATION, 


back by a blue ribbon, tumbled in pretty confusion 
on her shoulders as she bent forward at her task. 
Her cheeks were flushed, partly by the warmth 
of the summer afternoon, but more by the excite- 
ment of thoughts that flew faster than her needle : 
for as she sat there talking with her newly-made 
friend, there rushed into her mind in pellmell 
fashion numberless ways in which she might help 
this untaught girl. Maggie sat beside her, with 
her keen gray eyes watching eagerly every motion 
of the skillful needle, yet lifting them now and 
then to Margery’s bright face with a look of ad- 
miring awe. Since Margery had proposed this 
visit, Maggie had been on the lookout for her, 
and every afternoon the living room had been 
swept and dusted, the cook stove cleaned, the 
pine stand by the window covered with a clean 
newspaper, and Margery’s bouquet of greenhouse 
flowers, together with cuttings from Maggie’s own 
beds, placed upon it. By way of further adorn- 
ment a plaster of Paris cast of a sheep and two 
lambs, reposing on intensely blue-green grass, was 
set upon the window sill, and Maggie’s cherished 
collection of books, including the Memawrs of 
Nathan W. Dickerman,” were laid in symmetrical 
piles across the four corners of the stand. The 


MARGERY AND MAGGIE, 


I 73 


dining table, set back against the wall, was 
covered with a red cloth starched to such a 
degree that the corners projected rampant, and 
the selvages and hems, owing to the inexperi- 
ence of their laundress, presented a decidedly 
repand appearance. Indeed, Maggie’s desire to 
impress her expected guest with her ability to 
keep house had led her so far into the realm of 
decorative art that one of the wooden dining 
chairs (three of which represented the seating 
capacity of the room) was resplendent in a bow 
of magenta ribbon tied upon its dingy back, 
while a somewhat faded blue silk handkerchief, 
perched on the corner of a seven-by-nine looking- 
glass hung by white wrapping twine, did duty as 
drapery. Upon her own toilet, also, Maggie had 
spent unusual care. Her stiff brown hair was 
braided in a tight queue and tied with a piece 
of purple braid. A wide collar of coarse lace 
adorned her neck, and was surmounted by a 
string of blue glass beads. Her dress of pink 
calico rivaled the tablecloth in starchiness, and 
a bright Roman sash, a relic of her mother’s 
girlhood, was tied about her waist. The contrast 
between the two girls as they sat thus together 
was indeed a striking one. Maggie, although two 


174 


MARGERY^ S VACATION. 


years younger than Margery, was half a head the 
taller, and had she been properly dressed and 
taught to control her awkward limbs would have 
been by no means a bad-looking girl. Margery 
noted this, and resolved when better acquainted 
to see what could be done for her in the way of 
improving her personal appearance. Just now 
they were absorbed in the darning. 

“ It beats me how you do it so quick and 
pretty,” Maggie had said after watching her 
a while. “ I never saw nothing like it. It don’t 
look like darnin’. It ’s a heap more like some 
sort o’ fancy work.” 

Margery was proud of her darning, and the 
girl’s frank compliment pleased her. 

“My grandmother taught me to do it,” she 
answered. “We go to visit her every summer, 
and she always teaches me some useful thing each 
time. I was ten years old the summer she taught 
me darning. I made poor work of it at first. 
The holes would look all puckery and lumpy 
round the edges in spite of me — that is, the 
darns that used to be holes would. I ’m afraid 
if grandmother had not been wonderfully patient 
with me I should have given it up as a bad job. 
By the time vacation was over, though, I could do 


MARGERY AND MAGGIE, 


175 


it so well that mamma let me keep my own stock- 
ings in order, and now at home I do nearly all 
the family darning, especially the fine part, and 
I like it first-rate. It is like fancywork if you 
only think so and do it well/* 

Do you reckon I could learn it ? Pop grum- 
bles a heap because we wear out so many stock- 
ings. He says if I had any gumption I could 
mend ’em up a little an’ make ’em last like his 
maw used to, but I never had nobody to show 
me. Sometimes I do try to draw up the holes 
a bit, but they bu’st right out ag’in an’ ’t ain’t no 
good. It looks awful easy when you do it 
though.” 

Of course you could learn ; and I ’d be 
glad to show you how. Perhaps you have some 
that need mending now. If you will bring them, 
we can work together, and it will seem quite 
sociable.” 

“ I ’ve got some, but they ’re so bad I ’m a’most 
ashamed to fetch ’em out.” 

‘‘ No worse than these, I guess ; ” and Margery 
held up a pair of Walter’s with knees and heels 
so covered with darns as to render the original 
material invisible. 

^‘Yes, a heap worse. Yours has them pretty 


176 


MARGERY^ S VACATION. 


darns where mine has holes ; but I reckon I ’ll 
fetch ’em. I hain’t got no needles nor yarn 
though.” 

I will lend you some of mine, and when your 
father sees you know how to use them he will 
be glad to get you some.” 

“ He will that. Pop ain’t stingy with me, but 
he ’s tryin’ awful hard to pay up fur the place, an’ 
that ’s why he grumbles about things wearin’ out 
so fast.” 

“ It would be nice to have your home all paid 
for. I should think you could help him a good 
deal about it.” 

“ I did try livin’ out a spell ; but I had n’t had 
no one to show me how to do things the rich 
folks’ way, an’ so I could n’t ’arn much ; an’ pop 
he had to hire ’is board while I was gone, an’ so 
he said he reckoned ’t would pay best fur me jest 
to keep house fur him an’ not try to earn nothin’ 
extra.” 

“ I did not mean in that way. ‘ A penny saved 
is a penny earned,’ you know ; and if you could 
save by keeping things mended up, it would help 
toward paying for the house, just the same.” 

“ I s’pose ’t would. I had n’t never thought 
about it that-a-way. When maw was a-livin’ she 


MARGERY AND MAGGIE. 


177 


got me a place to be cash girl in the store where 
she used to clerk afore she was married. My 
maw used ter be a saleslady^ she did, an’ she set 
store by havin’ me learn her trade ; but I did n’t 
take to ’t good at all. I used ter git mad an’ flare 
up when they bossed me roun’ an’ jawed me too 
much, an’ so they sent me home. Maw felt 
awful cut up about it, but pop he ’lowed as I 
was too little to work anyhow, an’ he kind o’ 
liked it.” 

How long has your mother been dead ? ” 

** It ’ll be three year come next December. She 
’n’ the baby an’ Mollie all died along ’bout the 
same time with dip’thery. I had it too, but it 
did n’t kill me. Reckon I ’m too mean to die 
young.” 

‘‘ It must have been very hard for you and your 
father to be left so suddenly alone. You must try 
as hard as you can to help make up to him for 
the loss. You can be a great comfort to him if 
you try.” 

Maggie shook her head and grinned derisively. 

“Me.J* No, I ain’t no comfort to nobody. 
Nobody likes me, an’ I don’t like nobody, ’ceptin’ 
pop an’ a few storybook folks — an’ you,” she 
added, coloring. “ I used ter hate ye though, an’ 


178 


MAUGERY^S VACATION. 


try all I could to set the boys ag’in ye ; but I ain't 
goin’ to do it no more." 

“ Why did you hate me } ” asked Margery, 
wondering what this queer girl would say next, 
and thinking that the time was slipping away 
and the book she had come to discuss had not 
yet been mentioned. 

“ I dun ’no’, ’nless ’t was because you was rich 
an’ wore nice clothes, and I ’lowed you was 
stuck-up.’’ 

“ Don’t you like pretty clothes, Maggie } 
Would you not like to have them, if you could } ’’ 

“You bet I would,’’ responded Maggie with more 
frankness than elegance. 

“ Then why do you dislike people who wear 
them } You can see the clothes better on some 
one else than if you wore them yourself.’’ 

“ Would that suit you. Miss Margery, to see 
your clothes on some one else and you go shabby 1 
You kin see flowers in a vase or a-growin’ in the 
garden better ’n you can when they ’re pinned on 
to you, but I notice you like to wear ’em jest the 
same.’’ 

“ That is true, Maggie ; and I don’t believe it 
would quite suit me to have others wear my 
clothes for me ; but I don’t hate those who are 
able to wear nicer ones than I do." 


MARGERY AND MAGGIE, l*jg 

But you kin hev jest as fine clothes as you 
want, an’ jest as many of ’em.” 

No, indeed, Maggie, I can’t. I often want 
pretty things that either papa cannot afford to 
buy me or that mamma does not think it best 
for me to have, but I try not to be unhappy about 
it. I have all I need — and perhaps,” added 
Margery thoughtfully, ‘'more than I really need.” 

“ But why do you like to wear the flowers, an’ 
bows of ribbon, an’ soft, fine lace, an’ all that ” 

“ Why, I suppose because they are pretty and I 
like nice things.” 

“Yes; but why ain’t ye satisfied to look at ’em 
an’ not wear em ’ } — to see 'em in the shop win- 
dows and on other folks an’ in the garden, you 
know.” 

“ Why, I don’t know ; I never thought much 
about it. It is curious, is n’t it } I suppose it is 
because I want to look as nice as I can myself.” 

“ That ’s it ! ” cried Maggie triumphantly, “ that ’s 
jest it ! ’cause you want to look pretty ; an'' that’s 
jest why I hate folks in fine clothes an’ all that 
— because I want to look pretty an’ I can’t, an’ 
I ’m afeared they ’re a-laffin’ an’ a-pokin’ fun at 
me, ’cause I ’m ugly as sin.” 

“But well-bred people do not ridicule others, 


1 8 o MARGER Y*S VA CA TIOM. 

Maggie ; and for the rest, I would not care. They 
are not worth minding. Besides, you are not as 
ugly as sin. Sin is very ugly.” 

Folks as has manners may not make fun of 
ye to yer face, but they think it jest the same. 
Look here. Miss Margery, ye don’t dar’st to say 
that when you first saw me you did n’t 'low ’t I 
was about the orneriest gal you ever seen, an’ 
that ye did n’t notice how queer an’ old an’ dowdy 
my clothes wuz, an’ that ye would n’t a’most V 
wanted to die ef ye’d ever s’pose ye’d come to 
look that-a-way. An’ that day you fetched the 
flowers, ’t was all you could do to keep from 
holdin’ up yer pretty ruffled white skirts off ’n 
my dirty floor.” 

“ Why, Maggie,” began Margery in dismay, 
‘^I’m very sorry if” — 

No, ye did n’t do it,” interrupted Maggie 
hastily. ‘‘ I said ye kep’ from it, but I knowed 
ye wanted to awful bad. No, ye jest let ’em 
swish over the dirt an’ dust like ye did n’t know 
’t was there, an’ when ye went to the door, an’ I 
seen the nasty black streaks all over yer clean 
dress, I was that mad I could ’a’ beat myself, an’ 
I wished you had ’a' stuck up your nose or some- 
thin' so I could ’a' been mad at you ; but as ’t was, 


MARGERY AND MAGGIE. i8l 

I had to take it all myself, ’cause I did n’t have a 
cleaner floor. But that ’s what I say : folks thinks 
it ef they don’t say it, an’ I feel all the time how 
diff’rent I am from ’em, and it makes me that 
mad that sometimes, if I dar’st, I could’ most kill 
myself. Pop says he don’t go much on a God 
that lets some folks have more money ’n they can 
possibly use, an’ some on ’em not enough to keep 
from starvin’ ; and I say I don’t go much on a God 
that makes some girls with soft, peachy-like skin 
an’ curly shinin’ hair an’ eyes like the blue sky 
an’ pretty white fingers — that rings seem to be 
made foi* — an’ then makes others like me ! ” 

“ What is wrong with you, Maggie ? ” asked 
Margery falteringly, not knowing what else to say, 
and thinking she must say something ; and won- 
dering vaguely how the conversation came to 
take this unpleasant personal drift ; and feeling a 
strange, heart-sinking helplessness at Maggie’s 
relapse into her reckless talk ; and wishing she 
could pick up her mending basket and beat a 
retreat, as she had done from Mrs. Stark’s door 
on that memorable wash day. But she could not 
well do that. She must face it out, and try, as 
quickly as possible, to change the subject. Mag- 
gie talked so fast when she was excited that it 


i 82 


MARGEHY^S VACATION. 


was like trying to stop running water to repress 
her. The only thing possible was to change the 
current. So she said the first thing that offered, 
and her heart went out in an unconscious appeal 
for help in her extremity. 

“ What ’s wrong with me } ” reiterated Maggie 
vehemently. “ I should like to know what is right. 
Look at my freckled red face, an’ my stiff, ugly 
hair, an’ my big mouth an’ nose, an’ them hands. 
Would n’t rings look fine on ’em } ” spreading out 
a pair of grimy red hands with long, black-rimmed 
finger nails. “ Now, don’t go to sayin’ ’t ain’t so. 
Miss Margery; please don’t give me no taffy. 
I ’ve jest been a-lovin’ ye fur yer takin’ notice of 
me, an’ cornin’ to set with me so sociable, an’ not 
actin’ like I was diff’rent from what ye’d been 
used to, an’ all that ; but if ye go to pretendin’ in 
words that I ’m jest the same as your kind is, 
that ’ll be taffy an’ it ’ll spile it all. I am diff’rent, 
an’ you know it an’ I know it ; an’ what I want 
to know is, why God did it — made some one way 
an’ some another.? I mean. Can you tell me 
that.?” 

“No, Maggie, I cannot tell you that ; and I *m 
not sure that there is so much difference as you 
think. If you want me to be honest with you 


MARGERY AND MAGGIE. 1 83 

and will promise not to be angry at what I say, I 
will tell you what I think about you.” 

“No, I won’t git mad. You can’t tell me much 
worse ’n I know myself. I ’m homely ’s all git 
out, an’ I ’m ugly an’ lazy an’ everybody fairly 
hates me. There ’s your ladified Mrs. Morgan 
over there, she’d give anything to hev me die 
or clear out someway. Don’t I know it } An’ 
that ’s jest what makes me love to bother her 
boys an’ put ’em up to meanness.” 

“ Well,” said Margery, “ I ’ll tell you first about 
your looks. You are not pretty, but if you tried 
you could be as good-looking as the average girl 
of your age. Your skin is, as you say, red and 
freckled, but that is more the way you treat it 
than the way nature made it. You go out in the 
sun and wind a great deal with no hat or bonnet 
on. That burns and freckles your skin. Then — 
how often do you bathe, Maggie } ” 

Maggie colored up to the roots of her hair. 

“ Don’t tell me if you ’d rather not,” said Mar- 
gery. 

“Yes, I will too. I was the one that wanted 
you to be honest an’ I won’t back out. Some- 
times ’f I get to feelin’ pretty hot an’ sticky, in 
hot weather, I washes all over every week or two ; 


1 84 


MARGERY S VACATION, 


but in the winter sometimes I go ’s much as a 
month — it ’s so cold an’ our stove don’t heat up 
good, an’ it ’s a bother to wash anyway, an’ so I 
keep puttin’ it off. Maw used ter wash us ev’ry 
week reg’lar when she was a-livin’.” 

“ Well,” said Margery, bravely hiding the disgust 
she felt at Maggie’s revelation, that is another 
thing that ails your skin. No one can have a soft, 
pretty skin without keeping it very clean. You 
have learned that at school, have you not V' 

“ I don’t go to school much, since maw died. 
Pop he wants me to, but I tell ’m I can’t keep 
house an’ go to school too, an’ he says when the 
house gits paid fur he kin hire somebody to 
keep house so ’s ’t I kin go. But I hate it. I ’m 
always gittin’ mad an’ makin’ trouble, an’ I ’d 
ruther stay ’t home an’ read. I could go well 
enough ’f I wanted to, but I make pop think I 
can’t.” 

“ I thought you took great pride in being 
honest, Maggie.” 

“I do — most ginerally ; but I have to fib a 
little once in a while,” said Maggie, coloring. 

No, you don’t have to be dishonest at all ; but 
let us go on with your skin. If you would bathe 
often, wear a hat or bonnet when you go out, and 


MARGERY AND MAGGIE. 1 85 

not eat much ri«h or greasy food, you might, I 
have no doubt, have a skin as soft and fair as any 
one’s. That would make your hands all right too. 
They are not a bad shape. Your fingers are long 
and tapering and your nails are a real aristocratic 
shape. If you trimmed them and kept them 
clean, they would be lovely. See ! your hands are 
a much better shape than mine.” And Mar- 
gery took one of them and laid her own beside it. 
The contrast was so great between Margery’s 
clean hand and well-kept nails and her own 
slovenly one that, for the third time since their 
conversation began, this usually bold-fronted girl 
blushed hotly. She withdrew her hand quickly, 
muttering under her breath that she ‘‘’lowed” she 
might keep them a little cleaner if she tried. 

“ The same things,” continued Margery, “ the 
bonnet and the baths, would be good for your hair. 
To have nice hair it must be brushed a good deal 
and the scalp kept very clean. Bend your head 
down a minute. Yes, it is as I thought. The 
scalp is covered with dandruff and ” — 

“ And dirt ! ” interposed Maggie ; “ ye need n’t 
be afraid to say it, for it ’s true.” 

“Well, then,” said Margery, laughing, “since 
we are being so honest, I will admit that it is dirt. 


i86 


MARGERY'S VACATION. 


Now, Maggie, if you will do what I tell you, I will 
help you all I can, and I give you my word that in 
a month from now people will wonder what has 
made Maggie Dart grow so good-looking. There 
is another thing you can do about your hair. Your 
forehead is too high to be pretty, and if you will 
let me cut off just a few of the front locks, short 
enough to curl ” — 

“ Bang it, d’ ye mean } ” asked Maggie, grin- 
ning. 

“ Why, yes ; that ’s what they call it ; but it ’s 
such an ugly-sounding word I don’t like it. I 
don’t mean to make a great bunch of frowzy- 
looking frizzes — that would make you look silly, 
and your dark gray eyes are too intelligent to 
afford that ” (Maggie colored this time with pleas- 
ure) — ‘ but just a few little curly rings to lie care- 
lessly on your forehead so it won’t look so high. 
High foreheads may be very intellectual, but 
they ’re not pretty. May I help you ? ” 

“ If you wanted to take the trouble. Miss Mar- 
gery, I ’d do anything you said ; and pop would be 
awful tickled. He often says he ’lows I ’d look a 
heap like maw ’f I had her knack o’ fixin’ up. 
Maw was right good-lookin’, she was.” 

“Well, then, supposing we begin right away. 


MARGERY AND MAGGIE. 


187 


Bring me the scissors and I ’ll trim your hair now. 
You can get a good bath to-night, and wash your 
scalp well in a little ammonia water. I ’ll lend 
you some of mine till you get a bottle. You know 
how to put the hair up in papers. Do it just 
before you go to bed and take it out the first thing 
in the morning. Mamma says a lady never wears 
curl papers outside her dressing room. Let me 
show you how to trim your nails now. There ! 
do that often and keep them clean. We ’ll talk 
about your clothes some other time. I must run 
home now and get supper, but I will come again 
as soon as I have time.” 

“You’re awful kind, an’ I ’ll do the best I kin 
to mind what ye say. It ’s funny, though, I never 
knowed folks made theirselves pretty ; I supposed 
God done it all.” 

“You see you didn’t do God justice,” said 
Margery impulsively. “ People lay ever so much 
to him that they are to blame for themselves. 
Almost all the deformity and ugliness we see in 
people comes from somebody’s abusing or misus- 
ing the bodies which God made perfect in the first 
place. Think about it, Maggie, and see if it is n’t 
so. Good-night.” 

When Margery entered the room, Mrs. Morgan 


i88 


MARGERY^ S VACATION, 


looked up from her work and asked half quizzingly 
how the “literary symposium had prospered. 

Margery shook her head with mock gravity. 

“ This is a dreadfully disappointing world, Mrs. 
Morgan. We did n’t have any literary talk at all. 
On the contrary, we spoke on very sordid themes.” 

“ May I ask what they were ? ” 

“ Oh, certainly. Let me see — since the ^ sym- 
posium ' failed, I ought to find another big word 
in its place. I think it was a hygienic discourse 
on the art of being beautiful.” 

Mrs. Morgan laughed, and Margery ran to put 
away her work and prepare supper. 

As for Maggie, she sat in the place where Mar- 
gery left her, with her mind full of confused 
thoughts, until the sharp notes of the six o’clock 
factory whistles broke in upon her revery and 
reminded her of her father’s unprepared supper. 
Then she rose and went about her task with a 
strange feeling inside — a sense of new life and 
purpose stirring within her. What it was she did 
not know. She had never before felt thus. But 
I think that I know what it was. Margery’s 
magic key of love had gained her an entrance 
through the door of the heart to the girl’s soul. 

Do you know what that means, girls ? Think 


MARGERY AND MAGGIE, 


189 


about it a little before you read on. Such an 
entrance may come to mean — with God ever 
waiting to do his part — that strange, mysterious 
thing which we call the “new birth” — the lead- 
ing forth of a soul from the dark prison house of 
ignorance and sin into the glorious light of the 
Sun of Righteousness ; into the “ liberty wherewith 
Christ has made us free.” What think you, dear 
girls, you who count yourselves disciples of Jesus 
Christ } To gain such an emergence for one sin- 
gle soul, what price would you be willing to pay 
Would the labor and self-denial of one summer 
vacation be too much ? To work in Margery’s 
way may not be given to you. But avenues to 
human souls are as numberless as God’s infinite 
heart is great. Are you asking him to show you 
one ? 


CHAPTER XIV. 


MARGERY MEETS A FRIEND. 

I T was the last Sunday in July. The heat 
during the week had been intense and Mar- 
gery’s duties no lighter. Nora, under the influ- 
ence of Bob Stark, who was around whenever he 
could escape his mother’s wringer, had been such 
an embodiment of all that was mischievous that 
Mrs. Morgan had threatened twice to send her 
off. Margery, however, thinking not only of 
the pay, but of Mrs. O’ Finnegan’s place, had 
begged her off, and insisted on trying her longer. 
Accordingly she had exerted herself to the ut- 
most to plan new amusements for the children, 
and had even overcome self far enough to give 
them one more day in the park — this time wear- 
ing no veil, restoring the daisies to her hat, and 
personally superintending Nora’s dress, — which, 
by some contributions from her own trunk, she 
rendered quite presentable, — and inviting Maggie 
Dart to join them. 

Margery’s wish to part with some of her extra 

190 


MARGERY MEETS A FRIEND. 19I 

flesh was being quite rapidly granted, for all her 
clothes were a size too large, and Mrs. Morgan 
felt troubled at seeing the color gradually leave 
her face and a tired look rest so often upon it. 

If only they were not so far away, I should 
call Gertrude home and send you directly to your 
parents, Margery,’' she said one day. ^‘You are 
so determined to do it all that I am afraid you 
will break down before the other month is up. 
You are not used to it, you see, and it wears on 
you.” 

I am glad they are so far away, then,” said 
Margery bravely ; “ for I hate so to fail in any- 
thing I undertake ! And I think you will see, 
Mrs. Morgan, that I ’ve a good deal of strength 
left when the first of September comes. Of 
course I am tired sometimes, but it is only what 
papa calls a ‘good, healthy tired.’ ” 

Mrs. Morgan shook her head. “ I wish I was 
sure of it,” she said. 

“Anyway, dear Mrs. Morgan, you will promise 
me that, no matter what happens, you won’t write 
anything about me that will worry mother or 
spoil the pleasure of the trip for anybody. If you 
should even hint to Gertrude that I was not 
standing the work well, her pleasure would be 


192 


MARGERY^ S VACATION. 


gone in a minute, you know ; and besides it could 
do no good.” 

“Yes, I promise,” said Mrs. Morgan thought- 
fully. “ As you say, it could do no good, for your 
mother would not let Gertrude come unless she 
came with her.” 

“ No, indeed, she would not ; and that would 
just break up the whole party. Besides, I must 
insist that I don’t need them. Of course I feel 
the heat — we all do; but it’s only a few weeks 
more.” 

This conversation made Margery aware of an 
added burden to her responsibility — the task of 
hiding her weariness and discouragements still 
more closely from Mrs. Morgan. Perhaps this 
was, in some respects, the hardest of all, so unac- 
customed was she to self-repression. 

On this Sunday morning Margery awoke with 
a dull pain in her head, and, I am afraid, a still 
duller one at her heart. At least it was a vague, 
undefined one. She would not own it was home- 
sickness, but she felt miserably low-spirited and 
lonely. It required all the resolution she could 
muster to be pleasant and social with the boys 
about their dressing. She was heartily thankful 
that Nora was absent over Sunday. She wished 


MARGERY MEETS A FRIEND, 1 93 

Mrs. Morgan would laugh once in a while, and 
wear something besides black. She was sorry 
oatmeal was cheap and healthful : she was sick 
of the sight of the oatmeal boiler every morning 
at breakfast. She wanted one of mamma’s dainty 
Sunday morning meals, with fresh raspberries and 
cream, delicate white rolls, and a glass of yellow 
Jersey milk just out of the refrigerator. In short, 
I ’m afraid our usually merry-hearted Margery 
was suffering that morning from an attack which 
in an older person would have been called nervous 
prostration, but of course girls of sixteen do not 
have nerves. 

So the sultry morning wore wearily away, and 
the time for chapel service drew near. How she 
wished she need not go ! But there was her 
Sunday-school class, and she was not ill. What 
excuse could she make for absenting herself.? 
and if she did, Mrs. Morgan would question her 
and — No; she certainly must go. With a 
feeling of unconquerable languor she dressed 
herself and made but a sorry toilet. I fear that 
no one used to the sight of pretty Margery 
Mayne as she used to trip down the steps of her 
father’s house, clad in the purest white, dainty 
from the top of her stylish hat to the toe of her 


194 


MARGERY^ S VACATION. 


fine kid boots, a bunch of fresh tea roses or 
great golden-hearted pansies or fragrant blue 
violets in her belt — I fear no one used to this 
sight, I say, would have recognized her this after- 
noon. Her dress, it is true, was white, but she 
had worn it twice before, and she was now her 
own laundress. Her boots were getting shabby, 
and she had not the courage to go up town 
for a new pair. Anyway, they would do here. 
It was too hot, she told herself, for gloves, 
and scarcely any one at chapel wore them ; and 
her hands were showing very decided signs 
of toil. She was too tired to curl her hair, 
so it was coiled close on the top of her head, 
which, under the little turban she chose to 
wear, gave her, together with her unwonted 
pallor, the appearance of having added at least 
ten years to her age. 

She had already taken her seat by her class, 
when the young minister, who was also super- 
intendent, entered the room. A lady accompa- 
nied him, at sight of whom Margery started 
suddenly, flushed with pleasure, then began to 
look with dismay at her rumpled dress and 
her bare, red hands. The lady was Miss Gail, 
to whom you have already been introduced as 


MARGERY MEETS A FRIEND. 1 95 

the president of the Christian Endeavor Society. 
As they were nearing the church the minister 
was saying to Miss Gail, — 

“Yes, it has been hard to secure proper help in 
the school ; but there is a young lady staying in 
the neighborhood here who has been invaluable 
help for a few weeks past. She teaches a class of 
boys, and helps wonderfully in the singing. She 
has a particularly sweet voice, and, what is some- 
what peculiar — meeting her here, you under- 
stand — is that, for a young voice, it is so well 
trained. Help of this kind from their own class 
is indeed rare in mission schools. I must intro- 
duce you to her. She puzzles me somewhat — 
shows such gentle breeding, and yet brings with 
her some very poorly dressed children.” 

Miss Gail smiled. “ Do the rich, then, have a 
patent on gentle manners ? ” she said. 

“ Oh, not exactly that, of course ; but then you 
know how these people usually are. You have 
had a good deal of experience in mission schools. 
Miss Gail.” 

“Yes,” said Miss Gail reflectively; “I know.” 

“Ah! she is here now,” said the minister as 
they entered the chapel. “ It is early yet. Let 
me introduce you now. You can select the hymns 
with her, as you and she will form my choir.” 


1 96 MARGER Y^S VA CA TION, 

“ Miss Mayne, I wish to introduce ” — But he 
got no farther, for Margery sprang from her seat, 
forgetting all decorum, and, catching Miss Gail’s 
hand in both her own, cried impulsively : — 

O deaVy dear Miss Gail ! however did you 
come here ? Oh, I ’m so glad ! You don’t know 
how glad! — even,” she added suddenly, with a 
laugh that belonged to the old Margery, “ even 
if my hands are just as red and ugly as they can 
be!” Then, remembering all at once the pres- 
ence of the minister and the place of their meet- 
ing, the color flew to her face, and she sat down 
covered with confusion, 

“Never mind, Margery,” said Miss Gail ; “ Mr. 
White will pardon us for taking his introduction 
out of his hands. He was speaking of you as we 
came in, but had failed to mention your name, 
so that the surprise was mutual. I am sure that 
he is happy to know that we are old friends.” 

“ Most happy indeed, I assure you. But,” aside 
to Miss Gail, “ the mystery grows.” 

“ Explanations will keep,” answered she, smil- 
ing. 

“ But how did you happen to come here ? ” 
questioned Margery. “You of all persons the 
one I most wanted to see — excepting mamma,” 
she added. 


MARGERY MEETS A FRIEND. 1 97 

“Yes, of course, excepting mamma. Why, the 
answer to that question is very simple. This is 
one of the schools where I regularly teach, only I 
have been out of town for a month.” 

Mr. White bowed and withdrew to his desk. 
Miss Gail and Margery continued their conversa- 
tion a few moments in whispers, for the people 
were coming in. 

“Your mother told me all about it, Margery, 
and gave me your address. I was going to look 
you up to-morrow. I only returned yesterday. 
It was brave of you to do it, dear.” She was 
going to add, “ Only I am sorry to see you look 
so pale,” but she decided not to say it. There 
are some people who think before they speak. 
Miss Gail was one of them. 

“ That is just like mamma,” said Margery, 
choking back the tears. “ She knew I would 
need some one to go to while she was gone. 
How comfortable it is to have you by me ! only 
you must not hear me teach my class. They are 
positively dreadful. Miss Gail, and I have to do 
all sorts of improper things to keep them quiet.” 

“ I shall not hear you ; I have a class of my 
own. I am glad you are learning to teach, Mar- 
gery ; you can do much good. Now I must go ; 


198 


MARGERY'S VACATION. 


but I will see you again after service, and we 
will make an appointment for a future meeting. 
Good-by.” 

Mrs. Morgan hardly knew Margery when she 
came home that afternoon, she was so light- 
hearted— -so like her old self. The sight of it 
brought a smile to her own face, and when Mar- 
gery bade the boys good-night, Fred begged a 
second kiss and said : — 

“You’re just like you used to be, to-night, an’ 
I love you twenty dollars.” 

Then Margery realized how she had back-slid- 
den, and was almost glad that she had four weeks 
more to retrieve herself in. So seesaw-y \yas our 
Margery’s disposition that the sight of Miss Gail 
had removed her from the Slough of Despond to 
the top of the Delectable Mountains. She headed 
her entry in the diary that night : “ A friend in 
need is a friend indeed.” 


CHAPTER XV. 


THE NATIVE. 

I F Margery had needed any further ‘‘bracing 
up” after her interview with Miss Gail on 
that last July Sunday, she would have found it in 
the packet of letters that came to her in the Mon- 
day morning’s mail. Perhaps, after all, nothing 
did really put new courage into her so much as 
the letters from Colorado, especially Gertrude’s, 
which continued to breathe forth such rare and 
perfect enjoyment of her outing that Margery 
always laid them down with a lighter heart, and 
took up her daily burden with renewed zeal. 

Mother, of course, wrote every week ; Harry 
and Gertrude whenever they were “ moved ” to 
write; Dr. Mayne, Ted, and Dot rarely. This 
time both Harry and Gertrude were “ moved ” to 
write, and I have a mind to give you a peep over 
Margery’s shoulder, at the risk of being impolite. 

“ The Divide,” Col., July — . 
Dear Kity — We have found the native, and 

are at present reveling in his hospitality. And 
199 


200 


MARGERY^S VACATION. 


we did n’t have to go camping in search of him 
either. We put out no advertisements, we offered 
no bait, but he dropped unexpectedly into our 
midst. It happened thus : We had been for 
another look at Cheyenne Canon, preparatory to 
leaving Colorado Springs for our second head- 
quarters in Denver. We had taken in a stock of 
grandeur, etc., which we thought would last us 
until we reached the new canon or peak, or what- 
ever it might be, had fished Ted and Dot out of 
the creek for about the third or fourth time and 
set them on the rocks to dry in the sun (which, 
by the way, if you happen to be in one of these 
“cool” canons at midday, is the work of just 
three and one-half minutes — an extra half -minute 
resulting in a conflagration). We had done this, 
I say, and, having consigned our sardine boxes, 
etc., to the stream, we entered our carryall and 
drove homeward, sitting in the most approved 
tourist fashion behind immense bunches of colum- 
bines, ferns, and other woodland fixings. 

Arrived at the South End drinking fount, 
our driver decided to water his horses before 
leaving us at our hotel, thinking, no doubt, that 
— also after the manner of tourists — we should 
feel that the longer we occupied his vehicle the 


THE NATIVE. 


201 


nearer we came to getting our money’s worth. 
Some one was ahead of us at the fountain, or 
perhaps I should have said somQtkin^^; for what 
was visible to the naked eye at first sight was 
this : a big farm wagon with a box of green, two 
front wheels of red, one hind one of blue, and one 
of white. Attached to this rather unique convey- 
ance were two horses — one black, majestic in 
stature and lavish in the matter of ears, and the 
other a sorrel broncho with white mane and tail, 
whose head when held erect reached nearly to 
the back of his companion. The harness ap- 
peared to be composed of odds and ends, in the 
uniting of which hemp twine and baling wire 
were the chief fastenings. I forgot to mention 
that a set of uncovered wagon bows topped off 
the box, and in the back of it lay a plow and the 
canvas cover for the wagon. 

Seated on a board across the box was all that 
from our point of view was visible of the owner 
of the “outfit” (that ’s western and means all the 
persons and things belonging to one — to one — 
well, to one outjit — there ! ), namely : the rear of 
a suit of brown duck, overalls and “ jumper,” — 
that ’s western for blouse, — a mat of curly brown 
hair, and a broad-brimmed Panama hat. When 


202 


MAJ?G£/?V'S VACATION. 


they backed away from the fountain and we 
drove up, the “ owner of the outfit ” looked up 
and showed us a middle-aged man with sun- 
burned face, nearly covered with a reddish-brown 
beard. He started to drive on, then turned and 
took a good look at father, who was on the front 
seat with the driver. Then, suddenly checking 
his horses, he called out : — 

“ Hello, Mayne ! How came you to leave 
your pill boxes long enough to get out here.'*” 
Father started, stared a moment in blank 
astonishment, then, with the quickest move I 
ever saw him make, sprang from the carriage, 
and, the next thing we knew, was in the lumber 
wagon shaking the man’s hand as though he 
would wring it off. They talked a few moments 
earnestly, then father motioned our driver to 
bring us up alongside the wagon while he intro- 
duced us all round. It seems the man was a 
classmate of father’s in college, and they were 
once quite intimate friends, but had drifted apart 
and lost all track of each other. It seems strange 
to me that they should recognize each other so 
readily after all these years. I remember hearing 
father speak of him often. His name is Hewett 
— Jack Hewett, father always called him, and he 



Sit on the hurricane deck and keep the plow from falling out.’’ 

Margery’s Vacation. Page 205. 






THE NATIVE. 


203 


says he took the class honors when they grad- 
uated, but he was always an “ odd stick,” as the 
boys called him ; and here he is, settled on a 
Colorado ranch raising potatoes and oats, and 
keeping a little stock. Father wanted him to 
come to the hotel with us, where they could talk 
over old times. 

“ Could n’t think of it, Mayne ; could n’t pos- 
sibly. I must get home to-night, and it ’s a good 
twenty miles to the old ‘Divide.’ Besides, I’m 
almost too stylish to be loafing around with 
tourists — might be taken for one myself. But, 
say, old man, what ’s to hinder you all coming 
home with me.? If you’re in the scenery line, 
we have some up our way that ’s not so slow, 
even if it isn’t ticketed yet. Accommodations 
may be a little different from The Antlers, but 
they ’re free^ and the old lady would be delighted 
to see you. She takes rather more to scenery 
folks than I do, as a rule.” 

“ I should like it of all things,” said father ; 
“ but we are quite a large party, and I ’m afraid 
it would be imposing on your wife’s hospitality.” 

“Not a bit ; ’t would be a diversion to her. 
You see, she does n’t get out very much, and she 
is uncommonly fond of society — especially of 
your kind.” 


204 MARGERTS VACATION. 

“ But would you have room for us all ? ” 

“There’s all the ‘Divide.’ If that isn’t room 
enough, why, that ’s the best I can do. But come 
along. I know these youngsters are just dying 
to get away from so much style, and to have a 
good run with the calves and colts. My turnout 
is n’t stylish, but I can stow you all in ; and that 
just reminds me that the old lady told me to be 
sure and remember to get a spring seat. She ’s 
getting above riding on a board. If you want a 
little time to fix up your traps to take along, I ’ll 
go and see about the seat and come around for 
you. What hotel did you say } Antlers } All 
right ; I ’ll send up my card in half an hour or 
so. Get up, Jericho!” to the broncho; “go on, 
Jumbo I ” to the black horse ; and he was off 
before we could make any decision. 

Of course mother objected at first. Such a 
sudden thing, she said — and what a shame to 
surprise Mrs. Hewett so I But father was bent 
on going, and of course the youngsters were 
crazy about it, and Gertrude said. What a lark it 
would be! (You’ve no idea. Kit, how improper 
Gertrude is getting since she has associated with 
me.) And I was the only one in the family who 
could see any impropriety in having the some- 


THE NATIVE, 


205 


what conspicuous rig I have described to you 
drive up to the door of The Antlers and the “ Dr. 
Mayne party ” embark therein for an excursion 
to the unknown ‘‘Divide.” But as I was on a 
search for the “native,” I subdued all my pride 
and resignedly made my preparations. 

“ The ridiculous boy ! ” said Margery. “ I know 
he was crazier to go than any of them.” 

Well, at the appointed time our friend arrived 
at the hotel, and created quite a sensation among 
some of the guests who were seated on the 
piazza. Father was there to welcome him and 
in a few moments we were on our way. The 
spring seat, glorious in red and green paint, was 
there, upon which mother and Gertrude were 
mounted. Father was invited to a seat beside 
the driver on his board. The back of the wagon 
was filled in with straw — pointing to which and 
addressing me, Mr. Hewett said with the utmost 
gravity : — 

“You and the other kids will have to sit on 
the hurricane deck and keep the plow from fall- 
ing out.” 

Now, Margery, I leave it to you if that wasn’t 
a little too much! Just fancy me seated on a 


206 


MARGERY^ S VACATION, 


Straw mow in the back of that multicolored 
vehicle (from Latin multus — many — you under- 
stand) in company with Ted and Dot and a plow! 
and all that row of folks on the hotel porch 
looking at me, and Gertrude cramming her hand- 
kerchief into her mouth to keep from laughing 
aloud, and even mother with a wicked twinkle 
in her eye. Yes, and there was that yellow- 
haired, blue-eyed doll of a Miss Seymour, who 
has been making eyes at me ever since we were 
here, standing right by the door in her blue silk 
flummery, laughing at me behind her fan ! But 
father sat -on his board as much at home as if 
he had ridden in such rigs all his life, serenely 
unconscious of anything peculiar in our appear- 
ance and talking away to Mr. Hewett about col- 
lege days. 

As for Margery, she laid down the letter at 
this point and laughed till the tears rolled down 
her cheeks, and thought wickedly that this was 
almost as good as her day in the park. 

Harry went on with several pages more describ- 
ing the ride to the ‘‘Divide,” which proved, he 
said, to be the watershed between the Arkansas 
and Platte rivers, and the great potato region of 


Colorado. Then he described their arrival at the 
ranch : — 

At last we came to a gate in a grove of pine 
trees, which we passed through, and drew up to a 
long, low house of hewn logs, with a silver plate 
bearing the name of Hewett on the door! 

“ I don’t think you need say anything about 
styhy Jack,” said father, laughing. “I haven’t 
arrived at the dignity of a doorplate yet in my 
city home.” 

Mr. Hewett laughed his peculiar, quiet, little 
laugh. “ We saved that,” he said, “ with a few 
other things out of the Chicago fire, and the old 
lady thought it would give tone to our primitive 
residence, so she tacked it on.” 

You were in the Chicago fire, then .^” 

“ Yes ; it cleaned us out pretty well. I was in 
the furniture business, and it had good material to 
work on. That gave me an excuse to come out 
here and take a claim. I ’d always had a hanker- 
ing for that kind of life, but the old lady kind of 
hung to city ways. She was brought up that 
way, you see.” 

I think we all felt curious about the “ old lady,” 
and I for one had fancied her a fat, easy-going. 


208 


MARGERY^ S VACATION, 


gray-haired matron in a blue check apron. Im- 
agine my astonishment, then, when we were 
received by a slender, golden-haired lady, in 
appearance scarcely over thirty, though she must 
of course be older than that if she was a woman 
grown at the time of the Chicago fire. She was 
strikingly handsome, and dressed in as perfect 
taste as any city lady I ever saw, and you ’ll 
remember she was not expecting company either. 
She received us with the utmost grace and cour- 
tesy, making us feel at once that our coming was 
a special favor to her. And the inside of that log 
house ! The walls were of whitewashed hewn 
logs, the ceiling of muslin stretched across, but 
on the floor of the sitting room was a Brussels 
carpet ; on the whitewashed walls hung rare paint- 
ings and etchings. A bookcase of native pine 
occupied nearly the whole space of one end of the 
room, and was filled to overflowing with choice 
books. There was a piano, a stand of house 
plants, a canary bird, and I can’t tell you what 
else. But it was one of the cheeriest home-com- 
fort rooms I was ever in. A big center table was 
full of newspapers and the latest magazines, and 
I fancy Mr. Hewett is an inveterate reader. His 
hands seem to wander involuntarily to the papers 


THE NATIVE. 


209 


even when he is talking, and he seems wonder- 
fully well-posted in current events. Father is 
completely enchanted. He says this is the way 
to enjoy life. There are three other rooms in the 
house — two bedrooms and a big kitchen, which 
is also the dining room. I wondered where they 
would “ sleep ” us all. But there seemed to be not 
the least trouble. A bed on the floor in the spare 
room for Ted and Dot — father and mother, of 
course, occupying that room ; a bed lounge in the 
sitting room for Gertrude; and for your humble 
servant a tent! — a “ really-truly ” tent, as Dot 
would say. Don’t you think I ’m paid for all I 
suffered in mortified vanity } What a letter I am 
spinning out — particulars enough for a girl's let- 
ter. And I have n’t said half I want to ; but I ’ll 
tell you the rest when I see you. Anyway, papa’s 
friend is a brick.” I could fill pages with his 
droll sayings. He keeps us laughing constantly, 
but makes not the slightest pretense at being 
funny ; and in spite of his “ butternuts,” which he 
wears all the time, is not a bit rough. I ’m afraid 
we shall have to ^‘do” Denver in a hurry, for we 
shall have hard work to tear father away from this 
“ happy valley ” — or hill, rather. 

Pike’s Peak is in plain sight, and there is a 


210 


MARGERY^ S VACATION, 


hill on the ranch from which can also be seen 
Long’s Peak and the Snowy Range. If you sur- 
vive this, I ’ll tell you more of our new friends in 
my next. Yours, Harry. 

P. S. — To make my letter still more like a 
girl’s it must have a postscript. It turns out that 
Mrs. Hewett has a phaeton and pony for her own 
use, and Mr. Hewett must have bought that spring 
seat on purpose for mother’s comfort. 


CHAPTER XVI. 


MOTHER S LETTER. 


FTER reading Harry’s and Gertrude’s let- 



^ ters to Mrs. Morgan (the latter was a rhap- 
sody on the scenery and flowers of the wonderful 
“ Divide ”), Margery went to her room with 
another one in her hand as yet unread. It was 
her mother’s — the long-expected answer to her 
appeal in regard to Maggie Dart. As you have 
read the appeal, it is but fair that you should also 
have the response : — 

My dear little Daughter, — Your letter about 
Maggie Dart has just reached me in time for my 
reply to go in the family budget. Harry and 
Gertrude are both writing this time, so that I 
will leave details of our unexpected change of 
program, and our present delightful situation, to 
them. I think I never saw your father enjoy him- 
self more thoroughly than he does here, and as 
for Ted and Dot, their happiness can find expres- 
sion only in perpetual motion. They are busy 
explorers all day long — “prospectors,” Mr. Hew- 


2U 


212 


MARGERY^ S VACATION. 


ett calls them — and come in at twilight dirty and 
tired, with pockets full of pine cones, withered 
flowers, and specimims,'' as they have learned to 
call the various pretty-colored stones and pebbles 
which abound throughout this Rocky Mountain 
region. Sometimes there is a really nice stone 
in their collections. Yesterday, for instance, I 
sorted out from a mass of white quartz and gran- 
ite chips a very clear camel ian, a milky opal, and 
a bunch of tiny quartz crystals. Wood agates 
and flints are common, and Mr. Hewett has quite 
a collection of Indian arrowheads which he has 
plowed up in his fields. Dot is more interested in 
the flowers. She follows Gertrude untiringly in 
her botanizing walks — for the matter of that, so 
does Harry. She wished me this morning to 
hurry up her dressing. “ I has to have such a 
lots of time to pick Gertie’s f’owers,” she said. 
Yesterday we missed her at dinner time, and I 
found her sitting under a pine tree with a big 
book, resembling Gertrude’s manual, open on her 
lap, and Gertrude’s floral microscope in hand. 
She had a bunch of field sunflowers by her side. 
Holding a single flower in her hand, she looked at 
it critically through the glass, then began pulling 
it in pieces leaf by leaf, stopping occasionally to 


MOTHERS S LETTER, 


213 


reexamine some part with the glass. Now and 
then she would turn a leaf in the book, peer at 
the printed page with a look of owl-like wisdom, 
nod her head confidently, and proceed with the 
dissection of her flower. It was so funny — the 
perfect mimicry of it — that I called Gertrude to 
see her before I interrupted her botanical inves- 
tigations and recalled her from her imaginary 
study to the more sordid theme of dining. She 
responded with alacrity, however, and I am sure 
that Mrs. Hewett’s custard pie, and a generous 
dish of wild strawberries with real dairy cream, 
more than recompensed her for the intellectual 
loss. It will seem strange to you to think of 
strawberries late in July, but this ‘^Divide” is 
really a mountain altitude and the seasons are 
correspondingly late. For instance, haying is in 
progress here now, and Mr. Hewett says their 
grain harvest is in August and sometimes even 
encroaches on September. 

But about Maggie Dart. I must not forget 
that she was to be the chief theme of my letter. 
Like yourself, dear, I wish heartily that I could 
talk it over with you instead of writing. I am 
wondering, as I sit here, what you will have 
already done in the weeks that will have elapsed 
when my message reaches you. 


214 


MARGERY^ S FA CATION. 


I feel sure you will have made a good begin- 
ning, and I have no doubt that you and the 
strange, untaught girl you describe are even 
now on friendly terms. I am so glad you remem- 
bered about the “key of love.” Don’t worry, 
daughter, about the “ rusty lock.” No lock ever 
gets so rusty but that with God's help the key 
will easily turn. Don’t forget that. We only 
make the motions: it is God who gives the 
strength. 

Your idea of furnishing her with good reading 
is excellent. I could not suggest a better one. 
Only I think I would not take her to the public 
library just yet, if you have not already done so. 
Better go yourself and bring her such books as 
you know are interesting and good. If, as it seems 
from what you tell me, her taste for sensational 
novels is somewhat developed, she will be sure, 
if left to make her own selection, to pick out just 
that sort of books, and you know, daughter, what 
an ample supply of such trash our library affords. 
Sometimes, on that account, I am almost led to 
question its real good to the public. However, as 
I say, you can find much that is really excellent 
and at the same time entertaining. If she likes 
Little Women, you can do no better than to follow 


MOTHERS S LETTER. 


215 

it up with more of Miss Alcott, or with Mrs. 
Whitney. Take, for instance, A Summer in Leslie 
Goldthwaite’s Life. What better companions could 
you give to a thoughtful girl — and evidently, from 
her shrewd sayings, she is thoughtful — than dear 
Miss Craddock and earnest, sweet-tempered Leslie.'* 
To one with her passion for reading, all her book 
characters are real people, and through such 
means you can introduce her, in spite of her dirt 
and bad manners, into the most refined and im- 
proving society of the land. Such an introduction 
is better than sermons — yes, for better than 
Scripture texts or Sunday-school lessons. She is 
full, poor girl, of the idea of a settled hostility 
between rich and poor, between educated and 
ignorant folk : between your class and hers ; a 
misunderstanding very common to ignorant peo- 
ple, and which has its origin, strange as it may 
seem at first thought, in the unrecognized struggle 
of every human soul toward the light — toward a 
higher plane of living. Maggie’s very ridicule of 
what she is pleased to consider your fine airs ” 
is a sign that she recognizes an atmosphere of 
life different from hers and into which, if she 
only knew her own heart, she secretly longs to 
enter. Bring her, then, through the books, into 


2I6 


MARGEJiY^S VACATION. 


this higher circle of Christian culture and Christ- 
like living, and then, if you can win her heart, be 
to her the living realization of her book dreams. 

Do I ask a great deal, my little Margery 1 
Mother knows, and God knows, how difficult it is 
to be always “living witnesses ” for Him. But you 
can try^ and if you sincerely do that he will open 
ways for you. He has already given you a great 
gift, my daughter, — it can do you no harm for 
mother to say it to you in this way, — the gift of 
being attractive, of winning friends easily. Did 
you ever think, dear, that this was a gift to be 
consecrated to the Master .!* It is a rare gift, 
Margery, and one to thank him for, if only it is 
used aright. 

I feel so sure that you have ere this found a 
way to win Maggie that anything I could suggest 
for beghtning your acquaintance with her would 
be useless. But for carrying it on, how would it 
do to ask her to join you in your Sunday morning 
Bible stories with Walter and Fred } Of course 
I sympathize with Mrs. Morgan in her wish to 
have the boys as little with her as possible, but 
in company with you, and for such a purpose, I do 
not think she would object. 

The roots of a plant may penetrate ever so 
dank and rotten a soil when the purpose is to 


MO THERMS LE TTER, 2 1 7 

take its elements and transform them into its own 
beautiful stem, leaf, and flower, and be not only 
unharmed but benefited thereby. This is a little 
seed thought for you, daughter : preach your own 
sermon to yourself from the text, when you have 
a quiet hour to think about it. 

Let me know all about your successes and 
failures with Maggie, and if, when I have had 
time to consider the matter more, I think of other 
suggestions, I will write at once. And now, dear 
little daughter, once more good-by. You know 
how mother’s heart longs every day for the sight 
of you, how tempted I am to shorten my visit and 
come to you. And yet, when I see the health 
tints deepening in Gertrude’s face, and the joy 
of ease and plenty and gratitude and pleasant 
companionship lighting up -her hitherto sad coun- 
tenance, I thank God every day that he blessed 
me with a daughter having a heart loving enough 
and a purpose firm enough to do this sweet act 
of Christian charity. And while it pleases me to 
see Gertrude so happy, I ’m comforted by the 
thought that, in spite of weariness and loneli- 
ness, — and sometimes homesickness, — Margery 
is happier still, because I know, dearest, that it 
is “ more blessed to give than to receive.” 

Mother. 


CHAPTER XVII. 


NORA. 

\T 7HEN Margery laid aside her letters and 
’ ^ prepared to begin the work of the day 
she found Nora sitting pensively by the kitchen 
window watching the boys, who were engaged in 
a lively game of marbles in the shade of the coal 
house. She had just arrived, and was holding her 
sunbonnet in hand in a listless way that was very 
unlike her usual boyish manner ; for, as I have 
before hinted, Margery had long since discovered 
that the depths of serenity she at first fancied 
she saw in the child’s, clear blue eyes were but 
treacherous depths. She had seen lightning 
flashes of passion play over their surface till 
they seemed fairly to scintillate. She had seen 
sullen clouds of obstinacy darken them, and, 
worse than all, Nora had once fastened them full 
upon her face, and with a gaze which for apparent 
truthfulness and purity of purpose a martyr at 
the stake might have envied her, had made state- 
ments that Margery had reason to know at the 
218 


NORA, 


219 


time were wholly false, and that Nora also knew 
them to be such. When confronted with her false- 
hood in such a way that no loophole of denial 
could be made available, she burst into a storm 
of tears and, calling on sundry saints to forgive 
her, — particularly her especial patron. Saint 
Michael, — told Margery, “Indade and indade, 
miss, I niver towld aught but the truth before — 
niver — an’ the divil himself (bad luck to ’im!) 
must ’a’ been afther me sowl whin I said it.” 
Then she proceeded to enumerate sundry dread 
calamities which she hoped might come to her 
if ever she was guilty of the like again, until 
Margery stopped her, telling her it was wicked 
to talk in that way, and that the best way to 
convince people of her repentance was by her 
actions ; and she promised not to tell her mother 
if she were always truthful in future. 

Then Nora, again invoking the saints, this time 
in behalf of the “swate young lady,” declared her 
overwhelming gratitude for the promise, and went 
on to state how the heart of her poor “ mither 
would be broke intoirely if she knew it,” etc. 

But Mrs. Morgan smiled a somewhat cynical 
smile, and remarked to Margery in an undertone 
that probably Mrs. O’ Finnegan herself seldom 


220 


MAIiGERY’S VACATION. 


told the truth when a falsehood would serve her 
purpose. Margery, innocent, unsuspecting Mar- 
gery, was quite shocked at the remark ; but we 
will do her judgment the credit to allow that she 
took Nora’s future statements with allowance. 

She kept her liking for the strange little child, 
notwithstanding all these serious defects, and 
when she came to see more of her mother she 
wondered if, after all, Nora was so much to 
blame. And she earnestly hoped she might do 
something toward correcting these evil tenden- 
cies. Poor Margery had not yet learned how 
easy it is to go down when ' the prevailing wind is 
that way, and how hard to go up with only a 
slight counter-current to assist. But no such 
counter-current is useless, nevertheless. 

“Good-morning, Nora,” said Margery brightly. 
“ Why are you so sober this morning Are you 
not feeling well } ” 

“ Sure, thin, ma’am, it ’s not ill that I am, but 
me legs got uncommon tired with the cornin’ 
this mornin’, an’ me head ’s that light if I had a 
sthring to it I could use it for a koite, ma’am.” 

Margery laughed. 

“ I think we don’t need any more kites,” she 
said ; “ and perhaps if you will lie on the lounge 


NOJ^A. 


22 I 


a little while your head will feel better. The sun 
is hot these mornings, and maybe you walked a 
little too fast. Did you have a good breakfast 
before you started } ” 

I was not afther wantin’ to ate at all this 
• mornin’. The pork went all ag’in me, an’ the 
praties was in the pork, so a crust o’ bread an’ 
a bit o’ toddy was all I could git I’ave to swaller, 
ma’am.” 

Margery shuddered. Pork and potatoes and 
toddy on a morning like this, when the ther- 
mometer stood above eighty degrees in the shade 
and not a breath of air was stirring ! And cooked 
in the same room where it was eaten besides ! 
How could any one be decent-tempered and truth- 
ful and live that way } 

Again the tempter came to her with the ques- 
tion, How can the poor be Christians.!^ Yes, 
Margery, the odds are very much against them, 
but the promise, remember, is to him that over- 
cometh,” and “ these are they which came out of 
great tribulation.” Margery was going to ask 
her if she would not like a glass of milk ; then 
she bethought herself of the small pint that 
must do for the whole family all day ; and besides 
there was no ice, and if the pint of milk did not 
sour before tea time they were lucky. 


222 


MARGERY^ S VACATION. 


‘‘Could you eat a piece of toast and drink a 
cup of tea, if I fixed them for you?” 

“ Sure an’ I could, ma’am, an’ be glad of it ; 
but it ’s the throuble I ’ll be afther makin’ you,” 
said this suddenly considerate child. 

Margery felt sure she must be ill if she stopped 
to think of the trouble. She made the toast and 
tea, however, but, delicate as it was, it was but a 
small portion of it that Nora could “git I’ave to 
swaller,” and she lay most of the time on the 
lounge, or sat quietly watching Mrs. Morgan at 
her sewing, for the rest of the day, eating 
scarcely any dinner. At six o’clock, when her 
mother called for her, she was so flushed and 
feverish that both Mrs. Morgan and Margery felt 
troubled about her, and Mrs. Morgan advised her 
mother to give her herb tea and a hot footbath 
before putting her to bed. They were not much 
surprised when the next morning she failed to 
come, and as soon as the morning work was over 
Margery went to inquire about her. She found 
her sick abed with a burning fever, moaning in a 
half delirium, while Mrs. O’ Finnegan sat wring- 
ing her hands and calling on the saints, and try- 
ing every now and then to force a spoonful of 
“that dreadful toddy” (so Margery called it to 
Mrs. Morgan) down her burning throat. 


NORA. 223 

“ Won’t she have water ? ” said Margery, who 
saw no signs of any about. 

“ Sure, miss, and it ’s the wather she ’ll be bound 
to have, poor thing ! ” 

“ And why don’t you give it to her ? ” 

“ Wather ! when she ’s that hot, miss ? Sure 
the death of her it would be indeed. If she ’d 
but take the toddy, indeed ’t would hearten her.” 

Margery’s impulse was to cry out against the 
ignorance that refused cold water to a fever- 
stricken sufferer, but she restrained herself and 
said gently : — 

‘‘Why, Mrs. O’Finnegan, my father is a doctor, 
you know, and he went all through the fever last 
summer and lost but one case, and I ’ve often 
heard him say, ‘ Give them all the cold water they 
want, and ice.’ Yes, indeed, Mrs. O’Finnegan, 
bits of ice to swallow. Oh, please let me get a 
drink for poor little Nora ! ” And without waiting 
for an answer she ran into the next room and 
returned with a cup of the coolest water she 
could find, which was not saying much. 

“ Of course,” she said, “ if your father ’s the 
docther — but I’d rayther she had the toddy — 
I ’d a deal rayther ” — shaking her head dubi- 
ously. 


224 


MARGERY^ S VACATION. 


Have you sent for the doctor ? ” 

“ The docther is it ? An’ sure, thin, where ’d 
the loikes o’ me git money for the docther ? 
What with the rint an’ the clothes an’ the coal 
an’ the mate an’ the bread an’ the praties — to 
say naything o’ the hire for the care o’ me chile, 
an’ the wages that small ” — 

Margery had no patience to hear her through. 
“But there ’s the city physician,” she said, “can 
be had free. I know where to send for him, and 
I ’ll run over immediately and send Bob Stark 
for him — I’m sure Bob will go, and ” — 

Mrs. O’Finnegan fairly shouted, “An’ it’s the 
charity she thinks I ’ll be afther takin’ ! An’ me 
an honest an’ dacent woman who pays me debts, 
an’ hires the loikes o’ you to mind me brat ! 
Thin I tells ye to your face I ’ll have none of it, 
an’ it be a docther must be had for me Nora, I ’ll 
pay him ivery cint ! ivery cint ! do ye hear } if 
I worruk the very nails from me finger ends for 
it. Let them as lives in the slums take the 
charity — but I ’ll” — 

How much longer she might have gone on in 
this way I cannot tell, if Margery had not broken 
in upon her tirade by saying, — 

“ Of course you can pay him, if you wish, Mrs. 


NORA. 


225 


O'Finnegan ; but Nora is very sick, and if you do 
not have a doctor she may die. If you will name 
any other physician you would rather have, and 
give me his address, I will send for him. This is 
the fever season, you know, and any neglect of 
Nora’s case now might be very serious.” 

At this Mrs. O’Finnegan burst into tears and 
began swaying back and forth and shrieking that 
her ‘"darlint” would die — and not even the 
“praste” to confess her — and begging Margery 
to call the “ praste ” and get any “ docther she 
plazed,” and so on, in another tantrum. 

Margery, now thoroughly frightened at Mrs. 
O’ Finnegan’s behavior, — for a glance at the black 
bottle beside the glass of toddy had given her 
a sudden thought, — ran hurriedly out, saying 
she would be back in a few minutes when she 
had sent for the doctor. She went directly home 
to consult Mrs. Morgan, her mind in a tumult of 
conflicting emotions. She wanted to stay and 
take care of Nora, who had recognized her in 
the midst of her incoherent talk and kept begging 
her for more water. But there was her duty to 
Mrs. Morgan, and she knew that her burdens 
were now all that she could bear. If only some 
one could be found to stay with Nora, and Mrs. 


226 


MARGERY'S VACATION. 


O’ Finnegan persuaded to go about her work as 
usual, it would be so much better for the child, 
she thought. Oh, why could not she be two peo- 
ple in one ! She had never imagined before that 
there was so much work to be done in the world 
and so few people to do it. 

The result of her consultation with Mrs. Mor- 
gan was that the city physician was summoned at 
once and further arrangements deferred until his 
arrival. Mrs. Morgan herself would be present 
during his visit and see what could be done for 
them. Doctor Nesbitt was evidently no stranger 
to women of the O’Finnegan type, and had her 
well under control in a few moments, declaring 
positively against toddy and in favor of cold 
water in a way that made Margery rise at once in 
the estimation of Nora’s mother, and gave her 
unbounded influence with her for the future. 

When Mrs. Morgan returned to Margery, it was 
not a very hopeful story she had to tell. 

‘^The doctor says it promises to be a serious 
case. I followed him out for a few words in pri- 
vate. Her system, he says, has been thoroughly 
prepared for the fever by a long-continued diet of 
the most unhealthful sort and the free use of her 
mother’s favorite ‘ toddy ’ (no doubt this accounts 


NORA. 


227 


for her dwarfed body). If she had proper nurs- 
ing, she might pull through, but with such a 
mother — well, he shook his head dubiously.” 

“ If I could only go to her and send her mother 
away to her work ; I know very little about nurs- 
ing, but I could do what the doctor ordered and 
— at least, I could keep sober,” said Margery, with 
a comical look of disgust, mingled with anxiety. 

“You could not do it, child: it would be too 
hard for you. I feel responsible for you to your 
parents, you know, and this might be a risk.” 

“ Oh, there is nothing contagious in it, papa 
says, and my constitution has not been injured by 
bad diet ; but I could not leave you, of course. It 
is you who are not able. Oh, I have it ! I have 
my regular allowance, you know ; papa insisted 
on leaving me that, though I told him I should 
not need it. I have spent scarcely any of it. I 
can hire a nurse for her if the doctor will find 
one who is good, and if Mrs. O’Finnegan takes 
another fit over the ‘charity* she must not know 
that the woman is paid.” 

“The question will be to get Mrs. O’Finnegan 
to leave her. Even women of her sort have a 
kind of animal instinct which serves them in the 
place of motherhood.” 


228 


MARGERY'S VACATION. 


“Trust me to manage that,” said Margery 
cheerily, her spirits rising now that she saw a 
way out of her difficulty. “ I will go over at 
once, with your permission, and see what I can 
do about it, and to-morrow we will see the 
doctor.” 

She found her task much harder than she 
anticipated, but finally, the next day, with Dr. 
Nesbitt’s assistance she prevailed, and by night 
a nurse was installed and Mrs. O’ Finnegan went 
about her usual work next morning, bemoaning 
the hard lot that forced her to leave her “ darlint 
chile to the tender marcies of strangers while she 
toiled for the brid an’ the drugs.” 

But Nora called so incessantly for Margery that 
every moment she could snatch from her daily 
duties was spent by her bedside. Sometimes, 
even, she would take her sewing or mending 
with her if she could not otherwise be spared. 
In vain Mrs. Morgan remonstrated. Margery 
could not resist the appeal of Nora’s imploring 
eyes when she fastened them upon her and 
begged her for the love of the “ blissed Vargin ” 
to stay with her. One day — it was the tenth 
day of her illness — the nurse complained of 
such fatigue that Margery offered to take charge 


NORA, 229 

of Nora for the afternoon and let her go home for 
a brief rest. 

Nora was sleeping when the nurse left her, but 
it was a fitful, uneasy sleep, and the fever still 
held her. She had been delirious by spells all 
day, the nurse said. She could not say whether 
she was better or worse ; she seemed more quiet 
now. There was nothing to do for her but to 
give the medicine and drink and keep her head 
cool as possible and the flies from annoying her. 
Oh, these dreadful flies ! How they buzzed and 
swarmed over everything ! Margery plied the 
brush till her arms ached ; then she spread the 
piece of fly net over the bed until Nora tossed 
and moaned and called for more air, and asked 
why they were shutting her up in that tight 
closet. Full of remorse for having interposed 
even that thin barrier between the sufferer and 
the small allowance of heated, impoverished air 
which surrounded her, she again took up the 
brush and began wearily swaying it. How slowly 
the hours crept along ! She thought longingly of 
her cool, airy chamber, with its thick stone walls 
and closely drawn blinds shutting out the midday 
heat, its closely screened windows through which 
no stray fly ever came. If she could only place 


230 


MARGERY'S VACATION. 


poor little Nora there in her clean, pretty bed ! 
And it was so near — scarcely a mile away — and 
yet how far it seemed ! And it was people who 
lived in homes like that who took summer vaca- 
tions, who fled from the city’s heat ; and people 
who lived like this who stayed on and endured 
until — well, until the fever took them ! 

But this was a quiet, respectable quarter. There 
was another — oh, so much worse ! — down where 
the tenements were ; where the sun leaped back 
and forth from wall to wall of closely crowded 
blocks, and buried its scorching rays deep in the 
porous brick and mortar, from whence, when night 
came, they would creep forth fiendishly to rob the 
foul air about of every vestige of coolness ! She 
had heard of these places and the unfortunates who 
lived there — but now! she thought of Gertrude’s 
vehement outbreak against cities. That reminded 
her of grandma Burney’s and the hammock. Oh, 
how deliciously it swayed ! Gertrude was lying 
in one now, perhaps, under the pines of that far- 
away Divide,” in the cool mountain air. Mother 
was sitting near, talking to her. She could see 
her in her cool, white dress, with a flower in her 
beautiful, waving hair — mother’s hair. There 
was a soft light in her eyes and a smile on her 


NORA. 


231 


lips, but they were for Gertrude ! And there was 
Harry coming toward them from one of those 
lovely, flower-strewn meadows that Gertrude told 
about. His arms were full of bright, sweet- 
scented blossoms, and he threw them in Ger- 
trude’s lap. A great, hot tear rolled slowly down 
Margery’s cheek. She started and roused herself 
indignantly. What could she mean to feel that 
way ! She was glad Gertrude was there — glad — 
glad — glad! She repeated it to herself stoutly, 
and began swaying her brush so violently that the 
sudden breeze made Nora start. It was a poplar 
branch she held in her hand. The rustling of the 
swaying leaves and the droning of a bee which 
had just wandered into the room sent her to 
grandma Burney’s again, to the hammock and 
the orchard ; and before she was conscious of 
how the heat and weariness were overcoming 
her she dropped off to sleep and the brush fell 
from her hand. 

She had been sleeping for perhaps a half hour 
when she heard her name softly called, and 
answering, “ Yes, grandma,” she awoke with a 
start to see Nora lying still and white, with no 
trace of fever in her face and her great, blue eyes 
fixed upon her with a strange, wistful gaze. 


232 MARGERY^ S VACATION. 

She bent suddenly over her, in a tumult of fear 
and self-reproach. 

“What is it, dear.^* Are you better.^ Here, 
take this drink of cool water. Oh, how could I 
go to sleep Oh, how long the nurse stays 
away ! ” This last to herself, but unspoken. 

Nora’s voice brought her to herself and hushed 
for a moment the tumult within. It was so weak, 
so far away and strange, and yet so earnest, that 
she almost stopped her breath to listen. 

“ Miss Margery, plaze,” it said, “ tell me some- 
thin’ cool and swate like — somethin’ about the 
country, perhaps, an’ the trees an’ the wather.” 

Margery could not tell why these words came 
to her. She was hardly sure whether she was 
saying them herself, or a voice from some unseen 
presence was saying them — the old, sweet words : 

“ ‘ And he shewed me a pure river of water of 
life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne 
of God and of the Lamb. In the midst of the 
street of it, and on either side of the river was 
there the tree of life . . . and the leaves of the 
tree were for the healing of the nations. . . . And 
the city had no need of the sun, neither of the 
moon, to shine in it : for the glory of God did 
lighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof. . . . 


NORA. 


233 


And God shall wipe away all tears from their 
eyes ; and there shall be no more death, neither 
sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any 
more pain. I will give unto him that is athirst of 
the fountain of the water of life freely.’ ” 

Nora drew a long sigh. “ All the water ye want, 
it means, and no more toddy!'' she said faintly, 
and Margery went on, almost as one in a dream : 

“ ‘ They shall hunger no more, neither thirst 
any more ; neither shall the sun light on them, 
nor any heat. . . . And the Spirit and the Bride 
say, Come. . . . And let him that is athirst come. 
And whosoever will, let him take the water of life 
freely.”' 

Nora had not taken her eyes from Margery’s 
face while she spoke. The strange wistfulness 
of her gaze deepened, and her voice grew fainter 
and fainter as she murmured, ‘^No more heat; 
no more heat.” 

Now Margery felt a vague alarm. What did 
this strange quiet mean } this deadly pallor of 
her face, this solemn, almost unearthly gaze, the 
faint, gasping breath.? Was she going to die.? 
And her mother was away ! Oh, why did not the 
nurse come ! She ought to let some one know, 
to get help, but she dared not leave her. Nora’s 


234 


MARGEJ^Y'S VACATION. 


hand was tightly clasping her own, and her eyes 
■ — those mute, appealing eyes ! No, she could 
not leave her. She must do the best she could 
until some one came. Afterward she wondered 
that she was not afraid. She had never been in 
the presence of death, and now it seemed she was 
to be alone with it ; but she thought only of 
Nora. Nora was trying to speak again. Margery 
bent her ear to listen. 

“ Raise me up, plaze.” 

Margery raised the slight, wasted child, and 
sitting on the edge of the bed held her in her 
arms. Nora laid her head on Margery’s shoulder, 
still with her eyes upon her face. 

“Sure,” she murmured, “’tis the face of 
the blissed Vargin.” Then slowly, “ ’T was the 
heaven ye was tellin’ about, but now ” — 

“Yes, it was heaven,” said Margery. “No 
more sickness ; no more pain, you know.” 

“ But there ’s the purgatory ! ” said Nora, 
shuddering. 

“ No, no, no ! ” cried Margery vehemently. 
“ There is no purgatory.” 

“ But the praste ” — 

“Never mind the priest,” said Margery; Jesus 
says, ‘Suffer the little children to come unto me' ” 


NORA, 235 

Nora looked doubtful a moment ; then her face 
suddenly cleared. 

“ ’T is the face of the Vargin,” she said, ‘‘ and 
sure she knows.” Then again, “But there’s the 
dark, dark river I hear ’em talk about.” 

“No,” said Margery, scarce knowing what she 
said in her great desire to comfort Nora, “not a 
dark river — a beautiful, shining river ; think, 
Nora — cool, clear, shining water, and Jesus to 
take us over. ‘ He shall gather the lambs with 
his arm, and carry them in his bosom.’ ” 

Ah, Margery ! it was something to have been 
taught Scripture texts from your childhood. 
What was it not worth now to have memorized 
Sunday-school lessons all your life ! 

Nora said no more, but the troubled look passed 
away, and she lay so quiet in Margery’s arms that 
she could scarcely hear her breathe. There was 
a step outside : some one coming to the door. 
Margery’s face brightened: then a sudden fear 
held her. If it should be Mrs. O’Finnegan ! She 
had not been afraid to face death alone with Nora, 
but she was afraid of Nora’s mother. There was 
a knock at the door. It was not she. 

“ Come in,” said Margery softly, and there en- 
tered Miss Gail. 


236 


MAI^GERY^S VACATION. 


Margery gave a little cry of delight and 
motioned her to come forward. With one swift, 
compassionate look, Miss Gail comprehended it 
all. Nora’s eyes were closed, and she heard no- 
thing. Just a faint, fluttering breath told that 
she still lingered. 

“ Some one ought to go for her mother,” whis- 
pered Margery. Miss Gail shook her head. 

“ It is too late, dear Margery. I am very glad 
I came; I will stay with you now.” 

In a few moments more they laid her down. 

“ It is better so,” said Miss Gail gently. ‘‘ ‘ They 
shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more ; 
neither shall the sun light on them, nor any 
heat.’ ” 

Margery’s tears were falling fast, and she was 
trembling violently now, all her resolution gone. 

“That was one of the verses I repeated for 
her, and — and it pleased her,” said Margery, 
smiling through her tears. 

“You are a brave girl, Margery. I doubt if 
many girls would have stayed by Nora under these 
circumstances, as you did.” 

“ What else could I do ” she answered simply. 


CHAPTER XVIII. 


A VISIT TO MISS GAIL. 

A yriSS GAIL accompanied Margery home to 
Mrs. Morgan’s that evening. It was not 
her first visit there. Since the meeting at the 
chapel Miss Gail had kept a watchful eye upon 
her, not alone because Mrs. Mayne had requested 
it, but because of a genuine respect for Margery’s 
sincerity of purpose, and a love for the bright, 
fearless girl, who could brave the all-powerful 
“ they say,” for the sake of a Christian deed. 

She had planned for a visit from Margery on 
the Wednesday following their first meeting, but 
this had been prevented by Nora’s illness, for 
Margery would not spare any time which she 
could devote to her. Neither had Miss Gail 
urged her to do so, and both now felt that she was 
more than repaid for her self-devotement, when 
Nora was willing to trust her in spite of the 
priest — for whom she had entertained a lifelong 
fear, if not reverence ; and as long as Margery 
lives there will hover around those beautiful 


237 


238 


MARGEI^Y^S VACATION. 


verses of Revelation a sweet sanctity born of 
their power to comfort even a little child. 

Now, Miss Gail felt that the time had come to 
take Margery away, for a day at least, from the 
scene, which for the last two weeks had been 
a sore strain upon her endurance. She had been 
a good soldier, she told Margery, and was now 
entitled to a furlough. Margery hesitated in spite 
of the fact that Mrs. Morgan’s entreaties were 
added to Miss Gail’s, with an assurance that no 
work was pressing, and she and the boys could 
get on nicely without her for at least a night and 
a day. 

“ There are things to be done yet for Nora,” 
said Margery, shuddering a little, but nerving her- 
self in a sort of extra-heroic style, which was the 
result of her overstrained nerves. 

“Nothing for Nora^ dear; only for the clay — 
remember that always. Her mother and the 
neighbors will attend to that. It is best you 
should come away with me now — so run and get 
your things.” 

Miss Gail spoke in a tone of such gentle 
command that Margery offered no further resist- 
ance. Besides, the mention of Nora’s mother 
sent such a thrill of dread and disgust all through 


A VISIT TO MISS GAIL. 


239 


her that she felt as though she would willingly 
go anywhere to avoid meeting her. Then she 
reproached herself for the feeling, and honestly 
tried to be sorry for her. 

And now as she shook out the pretty white mull, 
which had been so ingloriously abandoned on the 
day of her excursion to the park, thoughts came 
thronging upon her so rapidly that her head 
seemed to whirl, and she could hardly go on 
with her dressing. For a vision of Nora in her 
strange, ugly costume rose before her. A vision 
of her as she stood confronting her tormentor in 
the rattling, jolting car, with her eyes ablaze and 
her slight form quivering with impotent rage ; then 
a vision of her as she saw her but an hour or two 
ago — the thin, transparent face, which seemed 
to be nothing but a setting for those great, appeal- 
ing eyes — what was it all anyway ? Where was 
she ? What did it all mean, this strange, strange 
mystery of life and death ? How old she felt ! 
The burden of the universe seemed resting upon 
her shoulders, and everything was in a tangle and 
she must set it straight. And how could she ? 
Oh, she was so tired ! Her head throbbed, and 
all the passages about death she had ever heard 
went surging through her brain in endless pro- 


240 


MARGERY'S VACATION. 


cession. “ Sown a natural body — raised a spirit- 
ual.” Yes, in heaven, Nora would be nothing but 
eyes and wings — no freckles or pink sunbonnet. 
She could see her now — two great, luminous 
blue orbs attached in some invisible way to a pair 
of soft, undulating, white wings, floating in a 
sort of golden cloud mist which she supposed 
must be heavenly vapor. Then the verses came 
again and with them snatches of Sunday-school 
hymns — 

There is a happy land, 

Far, far away. 

Where saints immortal stand — 

Oh ! then she was all wrong — they stood ; and 
this Nora of the eyes and wings had no feet ; and 
so it went on. She was dressed now, and looking 
about the room in a confused way to see if any- 
thing needed to be set to rights before she went 
away. Were the boys’ clothes all right for to- 
morrow 1 Ought she not to see } But there was 
Miss Gail waiting for her, and it was past her tea 
hour now. Oh, dear ! she ought not to go. And 
there were mamma’s text cards — she ought to 
take the one for next morning with her ; but oh ! 
she was tired of texts. They would not let her 
rest now, and they were so confusing. However, 
she took up the card. 


A VISIT TO MISS GAIL, 


241 


“ Casting all your care upon Hiniy for he caret h 
iox you 

So her mother had underscored it, and had 
added, “Even as a hen gathereth her chickens 
under her wings.” 

Like a cool hand laid upon a fevered brow it 
calmed her for a moment, and she took up her 
parasol and gloves and went out to bid Mrs. Mor- 
gan and the boys good-night, and accompany Miss 
Gail. 

When they arrived at Miss Gail’s home, what 
do you think that lady did } Yes, I know you 
can guess. She said to Margery that she was 
tired out, and that her nerves were all unstrung, 
and what she needed was perfect rest. And she 
positively forbade her talking or thinking any 
more about Nora that night, and she ordered a 
tea for them set in the coolest corner of a vine- 
shaded veranda ; and to take her mind from the 
events of the day she talked to her of her absent 
family, and tried to interest her in the plans for 
Christian Endeavor work after the vacation was 
over. And then she put her to bed very early 
with a tender command to go directly to sleep 
and be ready for a long talk on the morrow. 
Very well ; you have guessed it all out, and it 


242 


MAI^GERY'S VACATION. 


sounds very nice and natural, and I venture to 
say that something like this would have been done 
by the average lady in her place ; but your guess 
is all wrong. She did not a single one of these 
things. This is what she really did. She bought 
tickets on their way home to the jubilee singers’ 
concert, which she knew was to be given that 
night. She knew Margery’s fondness for music, 
and she had been a girl once herself. She knew 
that if she forbade her to talk of Nora that she 
would think of nothing else. That if she were 
put to bed early she would lie awake and think 
excitedly into the small hours. And she said not 
a word to her about nerves or about being tired. 

When they had taken off their things, she said : 

“ Now, Margery, we will go downstairs and see 
if they have left us a bite of supper. And we 
must make haste about it too, for we have barely 
time to dress for the concert, and I would not 
have you miss this one.” 

“ O Miss Gail, am I to go to the concert } 
Why, I ’ve nothing to wear — not a thing.” 

Miss Gail smiled as she thought how quickly 
a girl’s mind could be brought from the most 
serious themes to the subject of “ what to wear,” 
and in this particular case she was glad of it. 


A VISIT TO MISS GAIL, 


243 


“You can wear what you have on very nicely. 
White is the prettiest thing a young girl can 
wear in summer, you know, and with a bunch of 
my pink tea roses and a fresh pair of gloves, which 
I can lend you, you are perfect. Do you see } ” 

“ But my hat } You see, this is my last season’s 
one. I did not bother about a new one when I 
knew I was going to retire to private life ; and 
of course it ’s all out of style.” 

“ Oh, we can easily fix that. That fine Leghorn 
is never out of style for a girl. All it wants is to 
be caught up on one side — so. No, not on one 
side, at the back. Not exactly that either — just 
between the side and the back. There, that is it ! 
Look in the glass. Is not that perfect for your 
face.^ Now take off this trimming that you are 
tired of, and fasten on this lace scarf — so — leav- 
ing that space where it turns up for a bunch of 
the roses to match those you will wear in your 
corsage. While I am dressing, Christine shall do 
your hair. She is perfect at that. And yours is 
just the hair for her to revel in. She will make of 
it a most bewitching mass, neither curls, nor 
braids, nor frizzes, but an artistic combination of 
all three, which shall yet seem to be simplicity 
itself.” 


244 


MAJiGEHY'S VACATION. 


All through their hasty tea, Miss Gail kept up 
this light chitchat on dress and expected concert, 
in a manner which would have done credit to the 
average boarding school girl ; and Margery lis- 
tened in wonderment, and thought it strange that 
she had never known Miss Gail could be so jolly, 
and tried to make her thoughts return to Nora 
and the solemnities of the day, and then re- 
proached herself for heartlessness because she 
could not readily do it. And, worse than all, so 
she said afterward to Miss Gail, she actually 
enjoyed the concert, and laughed ns heartily at 
the funny parts as if she were under no obligation 
to be sober. And she went to bed at half past 
eleven, thinking of the music instead of Nora, and 
slept soundly until late next morning. 

She awoke with a start, as one nearly always 
does after an unusually long or sound sleep, and 
with the unpleasant sensation of neglected duty 
consequent upon oversleeping one’s regular time. 
Springing hastily from the bed with the sleep but 
half rubbed from her eyes, and the only thought 
in her mind being her usual morning thought of 
being dressed in time to help the boys, she was 
brought suddenly to a consciousness of her real 
surroundings by the touch of her feet on the soft 


A VISIT TO MISS GAIL. 


245 


velvet rug by her bedside. Starting suddenly, 
she looked around her in bewilderment for a 
moment ; then, recalling where she was, she did 
such a silly thing that she blushed about it after- 
ward when she told her mother (of course she 
resolved not to tell her at all, but of course, 
also, she was the more certain to do it on account 
of the resolve, because it kept her more in mind 
of the incident). She sat down on the beautiful 
rug and rubbed her feet back and forth over it, 
and patted and stroked it with her bare hand as 
lovingly as she would have petted her favorite 
white kitten. Floss ; and as she sat thus stroking 
it, she thought, with a dismal little shiver, of the 
harsh, ugly feel of the half-cotton ingrain at Mrs. 
Morgan’s ! “ But only two weeks more,” she said 

to herself, “and then” — The homesick feeling 
came back as she thought of the home comforts 
awaiting her, and then arose once more the image 
of Gertrude. She was to go back to luxury and 
Gertrude return to her poverty. Would the 
ingrain feel harsher to her because she had trod- 
den for two months upon velvet ? Was it right, 
anyway, this difference in the way people lived ? 
When she had suggested this to Gertrude, Ger- 
trude had mentioned the anarchists. She did n’t 


246 MA/? GER Y’S VAC A TION. 

know much about them, but it was an ugly name 
and associated with bloodshed and strikes and all 
that. Oh, dear, what a muddle ! She would n’t 
bother any more about it now : she would ask Miss 
Gail by-and-by. There was a step in the hall, a 
little knock at her door, and Margery sprang 
hastily from the rug as that lady entered the room. 

“ Good-morning, Margery ! I am just in time, I 
see. I thought you would like a bath this warm 
morning and I came to show you the bathroom.” 

Margery clapped her hands together and then 
threw her arms around Miss Gail and hugged her ; 
then sprang back, laughing and blushing. 

“You must really pardon me. Miss Gail. I’m 
too silly for anything this morning; but the 
sight of all this luxury overpowers me. And the 
thought of a bath was the last straw. Do you 
know I haven’t had one since I left home.?” 

Miss Gail looked shocked indeed. “ Why, Mar- 
gery ! ” she said, “you don’t mean it.? What 
would your mother say .? Why, how ” — 

But Margery hastened to explain. 

“Oh, of course I don’t mean I haven’t washed 
in all that time ; but there is a difference, you 
know, between that and a real bath. Standing 
before a quart or two of water with a cloth or 


A VISIT TO MISS GAIL. 247 

sponge, and having to spread something on 
the carpet to keep from slopping, and having to 
be ever so careful not to splash the wall paper 
in a room where you can throw out your arms 
and touch both sides almost — I don’t call that 
bathing, do you ? ” 

“Why, no, not exactly,” admitted Miss Gail, 
laughing ; “ that is, according to our modern 
notions of it ; but very many people have grown 
up healthy and exceedingly useful on that plan.” 

“Yes, I suppose so,” said Margery; “but I 
will run and dress now, for it must be late, and 
I am afraid you are waiting breakfast for me.” 

“The family have breakfasted already. I asked 
the cook to send us our breakfast in the library. 
It is the coolest morning room, and there is a 
little round table just suited to two, where we 
can take our ease and have a quiet breakfast- 
table gossip all by ourselves ! ” 

“ Oh, how kind of you ! Nothing could be 
more delightful — I came very near saying splen- 
did, but stopped just in time;” and Margery ran 
off laughing to her toilet. 

“What lovely doilies !” said Margery, taking in 
her hand one of the dainty squares of fine linen 
which accompanied the fruit course of their tHe- 


248 


MARGERY'S VACATION: 


a-tete breakfast. I think I never saw more 
exquisite needlework. Did you do them ? Par- 
don my asking, but I had quite a craze for learn- 
ing drawn work last winter. I did n’t succeed 
very well. Mamma said I had not patience 
enough for such fine and exact work.” 

It does require much patience and a great 
deal of time. That is why the work is so ex- 
pensive. No, I did not do these. If I had done 
them myself, I should consider them a piece of 
extravagance which I could ill afford. I have 
another dozen which are even finer and more 
elaborate than these. I will show them to you 
before you go. They are really works of art.” 

“ But these are handmade,” said Margery, 
‘‘and if you could not afford to do them your- 
self, how could you afford to hire them done } 
There must be a catch somewhere, dear Miss 
Gail, for of course I know you could ‘ afford ’ 
almost anything ” — 

“ Excepting to waste my Master’s time,” said 
Miss Gail gently. 

“ I do not understand. If these things are a 
waste of precious time, is it not wrong to have 
them ? Is it not wrong to spend money on 
them when so many poor are suffering.? Is it 


A VISIT TO MISS GAIL. 


249 


not wrong to have our lovely homes and enjoy 
them so ? Oh, I never knew how I enjoyed 
mine until I left it so, this summer ! And now 
it seems I can never be happy in it again for 
thinking of Gertrude in hers. And yet, oh, dear ! 
Miss Gail, this question of rich and poor — I 
cannot settle it. Everything is in a muddle, and 
I do not know what is right. I wanted to ask 
you to help me out of it.” 

“ No, my dear child ; you speak truly when 
you say you cannot settle it. God does not 
expect you to administer the affairs of the 
world ; that is his part. He only expects you 
to be as helpful as you can in the little corner 
where he has seen fit to place you. And if it 
is in a sunny, sheltered corner, he expects you 
to grow and bless the world about you according 
to the abundance of your opportunity. And if 
it is in a bleak and barren corner like Gertrude’s, 
perhaps it would still be the same he required of 
you, to grow and d/ess according to your utmost 
power. If to you and me he has chosen to give 
abundance of this world’s goods, we shall be held 
accountable for the usings not for the having. 
Perhaps I can show you what I mean, by return- 
ing to my choice napkins. God has given me 


250 


MARGERY VACATION. 


money and time and strength to use for him. 
If I take a very small portion of my money and 
a great deal of my time, and let my strength go 
to waste, unused, while I sit and embroider these 
dainties for my own personal gratification, I am 
a poor steward, indeed, of his bounty. But I 
take of my time and strength, and find out a 
poor woman, a widow, with children dependent 
upon her. She has been stricken with paralysis 
of the lower limbs. She will never walk. She 
sits in her chair and sews what they bring her 
from the shops at starvation prices. The work 
is heavy for an invalid, and barely feeds the 
children, making no provision for clothing or the 
coming of winter. 

“The eldest child, a girl of ten, does the 
housework and the outside business for the 
family, taking the work back and forth, collect- 
ing and expending the scanty pay. Sometimes 
she is cheated out of a portion of even that. 
Well, I discover that the woman can do this fine 
needlework. It is light to handle and a pleasure 
rather than a task to execute it. I give her an 
order and set the price myself, not at such a 
high figure as to let her suspect charity. It is 
not charity in its common sense any more than 


A VISIT TO MISS GAIL, 


251 


to pay a high price for a choice painting. I say 
to her, ‘ This is skilled work — it ought to be 
paid accordingly. I appreciate it; I am willing 
to pay; I am able to pay.’ I give an order for 
a couple of dozen. I spend a little more time 
and strength, show her work to my friends, and 
take more orders. She has now all she can do, 
and I see to it that she is not ‘j^wed down’ 
in price. These doilies bring her from fifteen to 
twenty dollars a dozen, and other work is in pro- 
portion. I have much of it in my home. Those 
scrim curtains in drawn work, in the chamber you 
occupied, were done by her. I gave her fifty 
dollars for the pair, and they are well worth it. 
I have been called recklessly extravagant by some 
very good people, but I can afford to bear that as 
long as I am sure the Master knows. The poor 
woman supports her family in comfort now, and 
they have been saved from the degradation of 
becoming common paupers. Does not that sim- 
plify matters, dear } I spend every cent of my 
income, and I use much of my time and strength 
in finding ways to spend it for Him. Do you 
think I could afford to recklessly cast away the 
principal } 

*‘My handsome style of living gives me in- 


MARGERY'S VACATION. 


252 

fluence among a class of people out of whom I 
can get custom for the poor, if by no higher 
means than appealing to their love of luxury, 
and, in some cases, their rivalry to outdo each 
other in the elegance — perhaps I ought to say 
the costliness — of their homes and toilets.” 

Is that what you would call making the 
wrath of man to praise him ” 

Perhaps so,” said Miss Gail, laughing ; ‘‘ any- 
way, their money does actual good, even if they 
do get credit only for the ‘ penny ’ they ‘ meant 
to gie.’ Your mother works in much the same 
way, Margery. I had a letter from her yester- 
day, asking my help about a similar plan for 
Gertrude.” 

“ For Gertrude ! Oh, do tell me about it.” 

“ It seems that that wonderful ‘ Divide,’ where 
they stayed so long with your father’s college 
friend, is peculiarly rich in its floral treasures. 
Your mother discovered that pressed specimens 
of Colorado wild flowers are quite the rage now. 
They not only put them up in books, but arrange 
them in panels for framing and for screens, make 
dainty gift-cards and a great variety of other 
things with them. She also discovered that Ger- 
trude has a remarkable knack for pressing them 


A VISIT TO MISS GAIL, 


253 


nicely and for artistic arrangement. She has 
even invented some very pretty new ways to use 
them. So she — your mother, I mean — and 
Harry have helped her gather and preserve a 
large quantity of specimens to bring home with 
her for mounting. She has been encouraged to 
believe that she may find a market for them here. 
Now what your mother wishes of me is to help 
create the demand and fix the price. I shall see 
your mother’s souvenirs when she returns, shall 
be delighted with them no doubt, and give gen- 
erous orders myself. Then I shall be sure that 
Mrs. A, B, and C see mine and desire to possess. 
So the demand will increase and Gertrude will 
sell out at good profit. Do you see.^” 

“Isn’t that just too — I must say ^splendid' 
this time. Miss Gail! Oh, I am so glad, and to 
think that I ” — Margery stopped suddenly. 

“You may say it, Margery, for it is true. You 
were the means of giving her this chance. Per- 
haps the thought of this unexpected good that 
is coming from it will cheer you during these 
last two weeks of your vacation.” 

“ Indeed it will. I don’t mind owning to you 
that I have dreaded them a good deal and that 
they seemed long to look forward to. Now I 


254 MARGERY^S VACATION. 

think I shall not mind them so much — and if I 
begin to feel dismal when I go back, I shall busy 
my thoughts with plans for helping to sell Ger- 
trude’s flowers.” 


CHAPTER XIX. 


A NEW ACQUAINTANCE. 


REAKFAST over, Miss Gail and Margery 



^ walked a while in the conservatory, talking 
of the travelers, and still planning about Ger- 
trude’s flowers, until at length Miss Gail drew out 
her watch, saying as she noted the time, — 

“ I have some household duties, Margery, which 
will keep me until nearly lunch time. Will you be 
good enough to excuse me, and amuse yourself 
until then ? There is the library, or the music 
room, or” — 

“ Oh, the music room of course ! ” cried Mar- 
gery. *‘Why, dear Miss Gail, do you know I 
have n’t touched a piano since I left home ? and 
I ’m afraid I shall be fearfully out of practice 
when mamma comes home. Shall I annoy any 
one in the house, if I practice a while ? ” 

Certainly not, Margery. It will do us good 
to hear a little music. I play very little myself, 
and since sister Helen went away the piano is 
almost unused. May I wheel father’s chair into 


256 


MAEGEHY’S VACATION. 


the back parlor just behind , the curtain where he 
can hear you play ? Helen used to play for him 
so for hours. He says that just the thickness of 
a curtain between him and the piano makes every 
difference in the music, softens the sharp notes, 
and gives it a soothing quality. Have you met 
my father, Margery } ’’ 

“ No, Miss Gail ; but I have often wished that 
I might. I am very fond of old people, and I 
have heard father speak so often of his beautiful 
patience since his painful accident. If my music 
will suit him, I should dearly love to play as long 
as he cares to listen.” 

“ Thank you, dear. I see you have the delight- 
ful habit of being unselfish, with all your gifts, 
and I know your playing will please father. I 
will bring him in and introduce you.” 

Twenty years ago Robert Gail had been the 
popular pastor of a wealthy city church. It was 
not only a wealthy church, but a working church. 
It had missions established in nearly every quarter 
of the city, and the only complaint made against 
the pastor was that he showed sometimes more 
real interest in the mission outposts than in 
the affairs of the parent church. When a large 
fortune came unexpectedly into his possession, 


A NEW ACQUAINTANCE. 


257 


through a line of half-forgotten English ancestors, 
he resigned his pastorate and gave himself unre- 
servedly to the work of city missions. Bearing 
his own expenses, subject to no ecclesiastical 
body, with almost unlimited means at his disposal, 
he entered heart and soul into a work which had 
been the ambition of his life. For twelve years 
he labored at his self-appointed task until his 
name came to be spoken with love and reverence 
throughout the entire city, and the number and 
magnitude of his good deeds the wonder and 
admiration of all beholders. Then suddenly, with- 
out an instant's warning, he was snatched from his 
prosperous work, and his active career in this 
world brought to a peremptory close. A rotten 
stair in a tenement which he was visiting gave 
way beneath him. The fall caused injuries of the 
spine which resulted in entire paralysis of the 
lower limbs, and for eight years now he had lived 
in this helpless condition. His entire nervous sys- 
tem too had sustained such a shock that, although 
on bright sunshiny days he was wheeled out in 
the open air, he was never able to plan or execute 
anything requiring much mental exertion. 

His eldest daughter, Barbara, the Miss Gail 
to whom you have been introduced, had been, 


258 MARGER V’S FA CA TION, 

during all these years, his chief dependence. 
With servants in plenty at his disposal, she had 
yet been, as he expressed it, the very mind and 
feet of him. As far as possible she carried on 
the work to which her father had been so de- 
voted. The income which he had used so gener- 
ously was now placed wholly at her disposal, and 
you have already had a hint in her talk with Mar- 
gery about her method of using it. Mrs. Gail 
died a few years after her husband’s accident, so 
that on Barbara’s shoulders had rested the re- 
sponsibility of the housekeeping and the care of 
her invalid father and younger sister, the Helen 
of whom she had just spoken, and whose marriage 
to a young lawyer in a neighboring city had, as 
Margery remembered, been one of the society 
events of the previous season. 

When Miss Gail left her in the music room, 
Margery sat down at once to the piano, and began 
playing softly snatches of remembered airs. This 
she called getting acquainted with the instrument. 

“ Pianos,” she used to say, “ are like people. 
Each one speaks to you in a different voice, and 
you must become familiar with the tone before 
you are really at home with it and know whether 
you are playing well or not.” 


A ACQUAINTANCE. 259 

The instrument which she now handled had a 
voice of rare quality, rich, full, and mellow on the 
low notes, clear and flutelike on the high tones, 
with a soft ripple when she ran her fingers rapidly 
over the keys, like the dripping of water in the 
moss-rimmed basin of a woodland spring. So 
plainly did the tone of the instrument suggest 
this that almost the first thing she found herself 
playing was the accompaniment of Tennyson’s 
Brook Song. Naturally enough then, for it was 
a favorite with them all at home, she sang it 
softly to herself. As she sang she seemed for 
the time to forget her surroundings and be once 
more in the familiar back parlor at home, with 
the lamps lighted, and father lying back in his 
easy-chair with closed eyes listening to her sing- 
ing, while mother’s knitting needles glanced in 
and out among the bright wool which filled her 
lap, and Harry turned her music and occa- 
sionally joined in her song. Again, when she 
sang 

“ I steal by lawns and grassy plots 
I slide by hazel covers ; 

I move the wild forget-me-nots, 

That grow for happy lovers,” 

the woodsy” suggestion of it all took her 


26 o 


MAI<GEKY'S VACATION. 


thoughts again to Grandma Burney’s, and the 
brook at the foot of the meadow lot, where the 
willows dipped their branches in the clear water, 
and 

“ Here and there a lusty trout” 
might be seen darting 

“Above the golden gravel.” 

A tear dropped on the piano keys in front of 
her. She started guiltily, and dashed at once into 
the noisiest part of Tam O’Shanter, and played 
as if she were the veritable Tam himself and 
the witches had well-nigh overtaken her. This 
finished, she arose and began looking over the 
music in the rack and wondering what old Mr. 
Gail would like, and feeling half sorry she had 
promised to play for him. He was a minister, 
and would be sure to want sacred music and the 
old-fashioned hymns. That would remind her of 
Sunday evenings at home, and — what ailed her 
anyway } Was she going to show the white 
feather in this disgraceful way just as her time 
of service was nearly ended.? Was she to spoil 
the whole thing by tears and melancholy and 
homesickness .? She wished she had not come 
near the music room. No doubt Mr. Gail would 


A NEW ACQUAINTANCE, 


261 


even want her to play Sweet Home in some one 
of its manifold arrangements — and Scotch bal- 
lads. Yes, he would be sure to want those. She 
never knew an old person in her life that did not 
dote on them. There was not the least doubt in 
the world that she should have to sing Bide a 
Wee and Bonnie Boon and Land o’ the Leal. 
She hoped he would nt ask for The Ingleside ; 
that was papa’s favorite — she would surely break 
down on that. 

“ But rarer, fairer, finer far 
Is the ingleside to me.” 

Ah ! she had never half realized how true that 
was before. 

“ But give to me my ain dear cot — 

The dear ones o’ my ee’ — that 
Makes to me a war!’ complete.” 

Tears starting again ! Why would those hate- 
ful song words keep coming. Hark ! was that 
the door of the back parlor opening.? Yes; and 
a muffled sound of wheels crossing the carpet. 
They were bringing in Mr. Gail. She saw him 
in imagination — a thin, sad face, framed in long 
white hair, and bony, transparent hands grasping 


262 


MARGERY^ S VACATION. 


feebly the arms of his invalid chair. The song 
and words in her mind changed suddenly — 

“I’m wearing awa’, Jean, 

Like snow when ’tis thaw, Jean; 

I ’m wearin’ awa’, Jean, 

To the Land o’ the Leal.” 

Yes, if he asked her to sing that, it would 
clearly be her duty — so appropriate, it would 
indeed be a wonder if he did. not like it. 

The curtains of the music room parted, and 
Miss Gail stepped to Margery’s side and laid a 
hand upon her arm. 

“ Father is here. Will you come and be intro- 
duced ? He is all impatience to see you. I have 
told him so much about you.” 

Margery could scarcely repress a start of sur- 
prise when she saw the invalid. His hair was 
white, to be sure, as became the hair of an octo- 
genarian, but it was well cut and brushed, and 
his black eyes gleamed from beneath their heavy 
white brows with almost the fire of youth. In- 
stead of the loose invalid robe in which Margery 
had pictured him, he wore a suit of black, and 
every detail of his toilet was as carefully attended 
to as if he were about to enter the pulpit or call 
in a lady’s parlor. Signs of suffering there were 


A NEW ACQUAINTANCE. 


263 


upon his face, if one scrutinized it closely, but 
the rare smile with which he greeted every one 
seemed for the time to efface them, and when his 
face lighted up with enthusiasm, as it so often 
did when a topic of interest was introduced, one 
forgot altogether his infirmity, and would have 
felt no surprise to see him walk across the room 
in quest of a favorite volume or to show a guest 
to the door with his old-time courtly grace. 

“ So this is the dear young lady who has been 
filling my breast with envy ever since daughter 
Barbara told me about her,” said he, after the first 
greetings were over, and Miss Gail had left them 
alone. 

‘‘I am sure, sir,” said Margery, blushing, “there 
is not much about me to tell, certainly not to be 
envied.” 

“ I am not so sure of the last, my dear ; but I 
should be a silly old man indeed to envy you your 
winsome face and bonnie curls. But it was your 
work I was thinking about. Daughter has told 
me how you are spending your vacation, and how 
nobly you keep to your purpose, and how much 
more than the first duties you bargained for you 
are accomplishing, and ” — 

“ Oh, please don’t ! Mr. Gail ; I don’t deserve it. 


264 


MARGERY* S VACATION. 


I ’m not the least bit brave — why, just before you 
came in, I was having such an ugly fit of home- 
sickness and discouragement that I came near 
being sorry I had ever done it.” 

“ Came 7iea7' ! Ah, yes, we all do that. Do you 
remember, daughter,” and Margery never forgot 
the look of tender seriousness that came into the 
old man’s eyes as he spoke — do you remember 
that Jesus ^ came near' in the Garden of Geth- 
semane When he prayed ^ If it be possible, let 
this cup pass — 7ieve7'theless ' — It all hinges on 
that, my child; on the ^ 7ievertheless.' As long as 
we can add that to our homesicknesses and dis- 
couragements we are safe. Sometimes I get very 
homesick here, and when the pain and weariness 
are unusually hard to bear I wonder if my wait- 
ing time is not nearly over, but I have no more 
real idea of giving up to this feeling than you 
have of abandoning Mrs. Morgan and taking the 
next train to Colorado, just as your time is nearly 
out. But come, let us get away from our human 
infirmities on the strong wings of some inspiriting 
music. After you have played for me a while, I 
want to talk to you about your work. That is 
what I was envying you, my dear : the chance to 
live right among the people you wish to help, to 


A NEW ACQUAINTANCE. 265 

think with them, feel with them, labor with them. 
That was Christ’s way. That is the hardest part of 
my infirmity. I can still give my money, — that is 
good as far as it goes, — but I cannot give myself. 
. . . Well, well, you must really begin the music 
in self-defense, or I shall preach to you in- 
definitely.” 

“ I would much rather hear you talk than to 
play, sir ; that is, unless the music would give you 
real pleasure.” 

“ It would — it would indeed ! ” 

“Well, then, what will you have.^” 

“ Oh, something stirring — perhaps a real rous- 
ing march would be a good thing to start with. 
Something to make me imagine I am once more 
in the fight instead of on the ‘ mustered-out ’ roll. 
Just drop the curtain, please, — my head is a trifle 
weak, — then play as loud as you wish.” 

Margery obeyed, throwing her whole soul 
into the music until when she had finished she 
was a different girl from what she had been a 
half hour ago. She felt ready for anything. She 
was sure she could live for months in solitary 
confinement with Bob and Maggie, if need were. 
She heard Mr. Gail applaud heartily behind the 
curtain. 


266 


MARGERY^ S VACATION. 


“ Ah ! that is good ! ” he said ; that takes all 
the spiritual rheumatism and neuralgia out of a 
body. Now let us have more in the same line. 
I 'm only sixty years old now ; sing me the Battle 
Hymn of the Republic and I shall be but forty. 

‘ Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming 
of the Lord.’ 

Do you know it I think there is a copy of 
Gospel Hymns in there somewhere ; it is in that.” 

I know it,” said Margery, and attuned by the 
martial music she had just played, she let her 
clear young voice ring out in triumphant melody, 
and when she came to the chorus a deep tremu- 
lous bass behind the curtain joined in the 

Glory, glory, hallelujah. 

His truth is marching on. 

In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born 
across the sea, 

With a glory in his bosom that transfigures 
you and me, 

As he died to make men holy, let us die to 
make men free. 

His truth is marching on. 

As the last strain died away, Margery was con- 
scious of a strange feeling of exaltation within, 
a something inexpressibly solemn and glad — a 


A NEW ACQUAINTANCE. 26 J 

sense of being borne up — up — she scarcely 
knew whither. 

With a glory in his bosom that transfigures 
you and me. 

The words repeated themselves over and over in 
her mind. 

As he died to make men holy — 

Yes, feeling as she did now, she was sure she 
could die, if need be. How far away and petty 
and mean seemed all her imaginary troubles of a 
moment ago ! She was sure she should never feel 
that way again. She had heard people speak of 
such wonderful joy and exaltation at the moment 
of conversion. Could it be possible that she had 
never been converted before and this was what it 
meant } She had thought she was a disciple of 
Christ, but she had never felt just this. It 
troubled her, this cloudy little doubt upon the 
sky of her newborn rapture. 

Mr. Gail parted the curtain with his hand, and 
looked a moment at the still, rapt face of the 
young girl. 

“ What is it, daughter } ” he said gently. “ Do 
you too feel the ^ glory in your bosom ’ } ” 

Margery turned toward her questioner. The 


268 


MARGERY^S VACATION. 


clear black eyes beneath the white brows were 
moist with tears. Following an almost irresistible 
impulse, she went softly to his side, and kneeling 
down bowed her head upon the arm of his chair. 

“Yes,” she said softly; “and I was wonder- 
ing ” — 

“What were you wondering, dear child } ” 

“ If I had ever been a Christian before,” she 
said in a half whisper, blushing scarlet at her 
own temerity, as the thought flashed suddenly 
upon her that half an hour ago she had never 
seen Mr. Gail, and now she was giving him a 
sacred confidence. 

The old man laid his hand tenderly upon the 
bright curls that covered the bowed head and 
screened the blushing face. 

“You are not the first who has been troubled 
by that thought, in some moment of transfigura- 
tion like this. You remember the story of the 
Transfiguration. Do you think that Peter and 
James and John first became true disciples when 
on the mount in company with celestial visitors 
they felt that transcendent ‘glory in the soul’.!* 
Ah ! no. It was when they left their fishing 
nets and followed him that they might learn to 
become fishers of men. There is but one Mount 


A NEW ACQUAINTANCE, 


269 


of Transfiguration in the whole gospel story — 
Yes, thank God, and but one Gethsemane, but 
there are many dusty highways and toilsome jour- 
neys and unappreciated labors and soul-trying 
misapprehensions. God is very gracious to give 
us sometimes these little glimpses of the perfect 
day that awaits us beyond : but they are only 
glimpses. Very quickly Jesus and the disciples 
came down from the mountain and found the 
needy multitude waiting for them ! They wait 
for his disciples just so to-day, Margery. I would 
like to change the last line of the hymn you just 
sang. I would have it read : — 

As he died to make men holy, 

Let us live to make men free! 

To make men free! O daughter, did you ever 
think how many things this waiting multitude 
need to be freed from } From ignorance, from 
intemperance, from filth, from self-seeking, from 
greed. Don’t be discouraged, dear child ; you are 
on the right track. By giving you a moment’s 
hint of what a soul can feel, God has helped you, 
I doubt not, to a fuller sense of the worth of all 
souls ; but do not expect to abide on the mountain. 
You are young and the long highways stretch 


2 70 MA/? GER Y'S va ca tion. 

before you. May grace, mercy, and peace abide 
with you forever.” 

Through all Margery’s future life the memory 
of that hour — the words of the saintly old man 
and his tender benediction — accompanied her 
and became an inspiration in many a trying 
hour. 

Margery arose from her knees, and standing a 
moment by Mr. Gail’s chair, she said : — 

“ I thank you more than I can tell you, for 
your words, sir. But I fear I have been selfish 
and overtaxed your strength. If I play you 
something soft now, will you rest } ” 

“ Let us have one more hymn and then you 
shall lull me to sleep with any symphony you 
please. But this must not be our last talk. I 
have done it all this time, but you will come and 
see me again and tell me about your work. Save 
up all the funny things your children say and do. 
I have not forgotten how to laugh, if I am an old 
man.” 

“Indeed, I will come again — as often as you 
will let me ; but what shall I sing for you 
now ” 

“ Let us have ‘ In the cross of Christ I glory.’ ” 
I When Miss Gail returned, a short time after. 


A NEW ACQUAINTANCE. 


271 


Margery was still playing softly, but her father 
was sleeping quietly, with his head laid back upon 
the cushions of the chair. She threw a light 
afghan over him, and slipping into the music 
room, whispered Margery to come to lunch. 


CHAPTER XX, 


A RIDE AND A TALK. 


ARGERY’S delightful day with Miss Gail 



was nearing its end. They had lingered 
over their lunch in the cool dining room, Margery 
unusually silent, Miss Gail brightly entertaining. 
After lunch they went to the linen closet, where 
Miss Gail displayed with much pride the choice 
doilies and lunch cloths in drawn work, of which 
she had told Margery in the morning. 

“ Oh, yes, I am recklessly extravagant,” she 
said laughingly, as she turned the key in the 
closet ; “ I even pay what my good friends call 
fabulous prices to have these luxurious articles 
properly laundried, but thereby hangs another 
tale, you see.” 

“ Oh, tell it to me, please.” 

“Are you not weary, then, of my prattling on 
the subject of spending money ? ” 

“No, indeed! I can’t begin to tell you how 
much it interests me. I feel as if I had discov- 
ered a new world, in which — what shall I call it ? 


272 


A RIDE AND A TALK. 


273 


— spendthriftery is a most honorable employment, 
and the spendthrift, instead of being blameworthy 
and despised, as in our old world, is the recipient 
of well-earned praise. It is like a fairy tale ; so 
please tell it.” 

“Well, then, since you will have it, here it is. 
In a certain alley down town lives an old woman 
who has for years earned her living by washing 
and ironing. It is the only thing she can do, and 
she does, as you see, beautiful work, but she is 
too old and broken and her back too weak to 
stand heavy work. Indeed it is very little of 
this light, fine work even that she is able to 
accomplish in a day. When I found her she was 
on the verge of despair. Her best customer had 
left her because she could not get her work home 
more promptly, and she saw nothing before her 
but to eat the bread of charity. To her, who had 
always lived an industrious, independent life, it 
would be bitter bread indeed. Well, of course I 
thought of my doilies and my laces, and I took 
them to her. I made the poor old soul believe 
that no one in the city could do such work as 
hers, and that the price I paid her was nothing to 
me and only a just reward for skilled labor. So 
she ‘potters’ and takes her time to do them, and 


2 74 TION. 

receives as much for her light work as she used 
to get for heavy, back-breaking washing. And 
besides the money she gets for it, she takes solid 
comfort in having her work praised and appre- 
ciated. As a special favor to Mrs. X, Y, and Z, I 
consent to get a few choice things done for them 
by my ‘perfect treasure ’ as they call my unknown 
laundress, but I don’t give her address. If I did, 
some one would soon be harrying her with a mis- 
erable ‘jewing down ’ or, worse still, finding fault 
with her work from sheer force of habit. I act 
as her sole agent, and it is pay enough to see her 
childish content and happy independence.” 

“ And these odd, beautiful rugs,” said Margery 
as they crossed the hall. “ Is there a fairy tale 
about them too ? I never saw anything like 
them!” 

“Yes, they too have their story; but I shall 
not tell it now. It is time for our siesta^ and 
when that is over I will take you to see the 
fairy who made them. You will find her a queer- 
looking fairy, I am afraid. But now go to your 
room, like a dutiful child, and rest during these 
hot hours. The phaeton will be ready for us at 
five, when I mean to take you for a little drive. 
You see, you are wholly at my mercy to-day.” 


A RIDE AND A TALK. 


275 


“ If I never fall into less merciful hands, my 
lot will be happy indeed,” answered Margery gayly, 
as they separated in the broad, softly-lighted hall 
and went each to her own room. 

Miss Gail, with the ease of a long-established 
habit, was soon soundly asleep in her darkened 
chamber, deaf for the time to the turbulent cries 
of the city, whose unfortunate ones laid such fast 
hold upon her heart, unconscious for a long, bliss- 
ful hour of the heat which was slowly scorching 
away the good temper, the ambition, the life even, 
of the masses to whom her great heart went forth. 
This midday rest was one of the means which she 
used religiously for the preservation of that rugged 
health which enabled her to do so much during 
the heated term — when all her wealthy neighbors 
fled the city. A few weeks at most, sometimes 
not even that, was all the vacation she allowed 
herself from her self-imposed duties. Self-im- 
posed ? No, rather, let us say, love-impelled. 

Margery, however, could not sleep so readily. 
She lay quietly resting in the loose robe that 
Miss Gail’s careful thought provided, thinking 
of the strange workaday fairyland into which 
she was gaining entrance, and building all sorts 
of air castles with which to adorn this new world 
of brotherly love. 


276 


MARGERY^ S VACATION. 


At last, however, she too fell asleep, and when 
Miss Gail’s knock at her door aroused her she 
was sailing away with Bob Stark and Maggie 
Dart on a raft of huge bananas, over a lemonade 
sea in which blocks of ice and mountains of ice- 
cream floated alluringly, while the strange craft 
was wafted on its way by sails of fine doilies 
and lunch cloths. 

Margery wondered somewhat at the vehicle 
which awaited them beneath the carriage porch. 
She had expected Miss Gail’s own little basket 
phaeton in which she drove to the mission school, 
and whose luxuriously cushioned seat she had sev- 
eral times shared with her. In its stead, however, 
she saw a plain, two-seated surrey, to which was 
harnessed a large, sleepy looking horse, which 
stood with head down, soberly flicking the flies in 
a leisurely way, scarcely taking the trouble to 
look up in response to Miss Gail’s “ All ready, 
Jerry ? ” as she patted his sleek side, while Mar- 
gery mounted to her place upon the front seat. 

“ We shall be a family party by-and-by,” she 
explained, as she took the lines from the waiting 
man, saying, I will drive to-day, John.” 

“ I had at first thought to take a vacation this 
afternoon,” she continued, “and take you in the 


A RIDE AND A TALK. 


277 


phaeton for a long country drive, but on second 
thoughts I decided to let you see me in my work- 
shop. Jerry is my work horse. He looks lazy 
enough, but he is the trustiest old fellow alive, 
and is so thoroughly in the spirit of the work 
that I could not get on without him. Get up, 
now, Jerry, and show us your finest invalid trot, 
for we have much to do to-day. Here, this way, 
Jerry! We go to Mrs. Smith’s first.” 

Who is Mrs. Smith } ” asked Margery. 

“ She is a woman who lives in a tenement down 
on Third Street and sews carpets for a living. 
This is her afternoon out. I could not bear to 
disappoint her. That was one reason I decided 
to take you this way instead of in the phaeton.” 

“ But could not John have driven her } I don’t 
mean, of course, that I don’t like this way. No- 
thing could please me better than to be let into 
your secrets — to see you work.” 

“No; in this case John would not do. You 
shall see why presently.” 

The air became fairly stifling as they neared 
the residence of Mrs. Smith on Third Street. 

“ How do people live here } ” questioned Mar- 
gery in horror. 

“They are used to it,” replied Miss Gail sadly. 


278 


MARGERrS VACATION. 


“Many of them never breathed a purer air. They 
are born in it and die in it — poor, ignorant things 
— ignorant of God’s great, beautiful, bountiful 
world. No wonder they think hard thoughts of 
him sometimes ! I am sure he makes allowance 
for them if they do. It is n’t much use to bring 
them tracts until you have first given them a 
breath of fresh air.” 

Margery was soon ushered into a room whose 
principal furnishing seemed to be heaps of carpet, 
and whose floor was covered with a plain straw 
matting. Large steel hooks were screwed into 
the wall on opposite sides of the room, and about 
four feet from the floor. Attached to these hooks 
by strong cords two breadths of carpet, pinned in 
place for sewing, were stretched across the room, 
and beside it sat a delicate young woman plying 
her needle with almost nervous energy. The 
one small window opening into the court at the 
back of the house was open, as was also the door 
into the hall way; but it seemed to Margery, as 
she entered the stifling room, that the only pur- 
pose served by this attempted ventilation was to 
let in the swarms of flies which buzzed about the 
perspiring face of the overheated worker. 

“ Good-afternoon, Mrs. Smith ; are we all ready } 


A RIDE AND A TALK. 


279 

Let me introduce my friend, Miss Mayne. She 
bears me company to-day while you go for your 
ride. Jerry is in fine order; doesn’t seem to 
mind the heat in the least. Who goes with 
you to-day } Oh, yes ! Miss Andrews and the 
McAfferty children. Will the baby be able to 
go?” 

‘‘I think so; Miss Andrews said she’d drive 
if I could hold the baby, and I was wondering 
if we could make room to stow little Carl Bower- 
stock in someway — he sat up nearly three hours 
yesterday, and gets round some on his crutch ; 
but the hot weather tells on him bad.” 

“ Ah, yes, I remember — the newsboy that was 
run over by the street car ! Of course he ought 
to go ; but perhaps I ’d better take him with me 
in the next load. My friend here will like to look 
after him, and the air will be still cooler then.” 

“ Oh, if you could ! The little fellow has been 
so brave, but it frets him so — the lost time. His 
mother has to work just that much harder, you 
see.” 

Mrs. Smith’s utterances were in a strange 
hoarse whisper, which made Margery almost 
shudder. At first, she wondered if there were 
cause for secrecy, but soon found that the poor 


28 o 


MAJiGEI^Y^S VACATION. 


woman spoke with all the voice she had. As 
she rose to make ready for her ride, Margery 
noted with quick compassion her bent form, 
round shoulders, and hollow chest, which heaved 
painfully with every breath she drew. So intent 
was she upon Mrs. Smith that she did not notice 
Miss Gail’s movements in the meantime, and was 
not a little startled to see her, with a long-sleeved 
gingham apron buttoned over her street toilet, 
take Mrs. Smith’s chair beside the carpet and 
begin to sew industriously. 

But could n’t she go without your doing this. 
Miss Gail V questioned Margery, as soon as Mrs. 
Smith was out of hearing. 

Miss Gail shook her head. “She is paid by 
the yard, so of course her time is just so much 
money; and besides there is just so much work 
to be done in the establishment by which she is 
employed, and if she does not do her full share 
she loses her place. There are plenty standing 
ready to take it, and work over hours if need be. 
The fewer the women employed, the less trouble 
it is to the firm. Do you see } ” 

“ But her voice ! She must have throat or lung 
trouble.” 

“ Both.” 


A RIDE AND A TALK. 


281 


‘‘But this carpet sewing — the dust and lint — 
the heavy lifting — the stooping. I should think 
it the worst work in the world for her.” 

“ It is the best she can find. She can make 
mere at it than at light work. She has a 
daughter with spinal complaint ; she pays her 
board in the country for two months every sum- 
mer. It is a small sum, as we are accustomed to 
count, Margery; but for her — well, you see 
how she earns it.” 

The quick tears sprang to Margery’s eyes. 

“ Let me help sew. Miss Gail. It will be a 
few cents more.” 

“ No, dear ; you do not know how. Even carpet 
sewing is a trade ; I learned from her. The little 
you could do in an hour would not count, it 
would take so much time to show you.” 

“ She would not take money given outright, I 
suppose } ” 

“No more than- you or I would, Margery. 
She drives my horse for me to give her poor 
neighbors an airing. I would rather sew than 
drive so much. Do you see We have to con- 
trive all sorts of schemes to reach those most 
worthy of help. But I was going to tell you 
about my rugs, which you admired so much. 


282 


MARGERrS VACATION. 


They began right here. You see she makes 
many handsome rugs and bordered carpets. 
They let her have the corners which come out 
of the borders. She showed me a pile she was 
saving to make a carpet for herself. She hoped 
to get time evenings to piece them together, but 
she was so tired at night, and her back ached so, 
that she kept putting it off ! 

‘‘I began placing them together on the floor and 
soon saw that a very quaint and really elegant rug 
might be made by piecing them together, crazy 
fashion, with an eye to arrangement and coloring ; 
but it would be slow, tiresome work. I suggested 
that matting would be more useful for her dusty 
work, and that I should be only too glad to buy 
her pieces for a rug and hire them made up. She 
assented readily and knew just the woman who 
needed work and would do them for me. We go 
to see her this afternoon. As I told you, she is 
a strange-looking fairy.” 

“Where do Mrs. Smith and her charges go?” 

“Just a mile out of town. There is a country 
place there — just a suburban residence on a half- 
acre lot — but there is plenty of shade and pure 
water. The grounds are lovely. We shall go 
there by-and-by — when Mrs. Smith returns. It 


A RIDE AND A TALK. 


283 


is owned by a dear friend of mine who is travel- 
ing in Europe with her daughters. She has been 
kind enough to place the establishment entirely 
at my disposal, servants and all, so we use it for 
our ‘ fresh airs ’ who can only be gotten away 
temporarily. It is wonderful, the good it does. 
So easy of access, and the servants enter heartily 
into the work ; such delightful lunches as they 
spread for us under the elms on the back lawn ! 
All the small fruit on the place — and there is 
much of it — has been served to the children that 
way, as well as the milk of the fine Jersey cow. 
Mrs. Smith and her party will get their supper 
there. They go, or rather, she goes with different 
parties three times a week. On the other three 
days another sewing woman from another quarter 
of town takes a party. She ties comfortables for 
a living.” 

‘‘ Do you substitute for her also } ” 

“Yes; that is the only way most of them can 
go. The first parties come back at half-past six. 
Then I gather my party, which I drive myself. 
If I am needed somewhere else, I send a substi- 
tute, as I did last night, for instance. Sometimes 
John drives them. He is quite willing to do this, 
as there is a very pretty waiting maid at the villa 


284 


MARGERY^S VACATION, 


who seems quite pleased at his coming. We shall 
have our tea there to-night, and you shall take 
charge of Carl Bowerstock if you will. You will 
find him a really entertaining companion.” 

Conversing thus the hour passed swiftly away 
in spite of the heat and discomfort of the small 
apartment, and Mrs. Smith appeared in the door- 
way long before Margery expected her. 

“ Really, Miss Gail,” she said, as she laid aside 
her plain sunbonnet and drew off her worn, cot- 
ton gloves, “ I feel someway as if I ought to 
pay something for these rides and suppers. I 
have so much the best end of the bargain, you 
see. My work going right on — what a long 

strip you have sewed to-day ; why, you ’re get- 

ting to be a master hand at the work! As I 
was saying, my work goes on as well or better 
than if I was here, and the ride and country 

air and the fruit and cream and all that — we had 

ice cream to-night too. How the poor little Mc- 
Affertys did go for it I ’T would do your heart 
good to see them. But, as I said, to have all that 
and then come home bright as a new penny, and 
no supper to get, and able to put in a good extra 
hour at the work and not feel it a bit — someway 
I feel ’s if I gouging somebody.” 


A RIDE AND A TALK. 285 

** Not a bit,” replied Miss Gail brightly ; “ on 
the contrary you do me a real favor. You see, we 
must get two parties out there, and you surely 
would not have me eat two suppers nor let me get 
sick of going so often to one place. As for the 
sewing, you can’t realize it because you do so 
much of it, but an hour or so at a time is a real 
change and pleasure to me. I insist that I am 
the debtor. But come, Margery, we must be off 
or the children will be impatient. Good-night, 
Mrs. Smith. Please don’t waste the little strength 
you ’ve gained by sewing too late.” 

The “ rug fairy ” whom Miss Gail promised to 
show Margery proved to be a tiny hunchback — 
a woman of forty with the stature of a child of 
ten or less. So deformed was she that no ordi- 
nary work was possible ; but, sitting in the tiny, 
cushioned chair which Miss Gail had had made 
especially for her, she could put the rugs together 
piece by piece, and the work was a real delight, 
serving to while away many a tedious hour, while 
the generous pay which she received brought her 
many unwonted comforts, and made her feel much 
less a burden on the busy sister whose home 
she shared. 

She made one of the second party to the villa, 


286 


MARGERY^ S VACATION. 


on this occasion, and Margery hardly knew which 
she enjoyed most, the bright smile and happy 
enthusiasm of the little, black-eyed child-woman, 
or the droll witticisms of Carl Bowerstock. They 
occupied one seat of the surrey with her, while 
she also held a year-old baby in her lap and 
agreed to be responsible for the staying-in of a 
four-year-old boy cuddled at their feet. 

The tea and the ice-cream feast at the villa 
were all that Margery’s imagination had conjured, 
and as they drove out to Mrs. Morgan’s in the 
twilight after having returned their party to their 
homes, they talked but little ; but over and over 
in Margery’s thought the words of old Mr. Gail 
repeated themselves, 

“As he died to make men holy, 

Let us live to make men free.” 

Live ! Oh, how she would live ! Life tingled in 
her every vein. Weariness, discouragement van- 
ished again. She had but just discovered the real 
purpose of living. She said something of this to 
Miss Gail, who repeated softly: — 

‘ I am come that they might have life, and 
that they might have it more abundantly.’ That 
was Christ’s mission. It is ours to help him 
bestow it — to open avenues to him.” 


A RIDE AND A TALK. 


287 


As they parted at Mrs. Morgan’s gate, Miss 
Gail smiled brightly into Margery’s eyes as she 
asked : — 

Can you bear the remaining two weeks now 
*‘Yes, twenty of them!” answered Margery 
impulsively. “ O dear Miss Gail, you can never 
know how this day has helped, especially the last 
part — and your father.” 

“ I think I can guess, dear. Good-night ; but 
remember, don’t try to carry all the world.” 

The two weeks, however, were destined to be 
spent in a very different way from that which 
either had anticipated. When Margery entered 
the cottage she found a letter from grandma 
Burney awaiting her, which, as the next chapter 
will show, made a decided alteration in her plans. 


/ 


CHAPTER XXL 


IN THE COUNTRY. 

■jV /TY DEAR MARGERY, — But two short 
weeks of your summer vacation now 
remain, and I have your mother’s permission to 
urge that you spend them with me. It was a 
great disappointment to me to be obliged to 
forego my usual visit from your mother and the 
children, not to mention the absence of my 
favorite Margery. We have borne it as patiently 
as we could, — grandpa and I, — but the old 
house has seemed lonely all summer and we 
have longed for the sound of children’s voices. 
Now you must come to me with your friend, Mrs. 
Morgan, and the two boys, with whom I already 
feel acquainted from your mention of them in 
your letters. Although Mrs. Morgan and I have 
not met for many years, I do not forget her 
intimacy with your mother, when they were 
your age, and nothing would give me greater 
pleasure than to renew the acquaintance with her 
at this time. 


IN THE COUNTRY. 


289 


The harvest apples are ripe, just waiting for 
boys to shake them off, and my hen yard is full of 
plump pullets ready for a “fry,” and no one but 
grandpa and me to use them. I know you will 
not refuse me, and grandpa will be at the station 
the day after to-morrow to meet you with the 
carryall. You will reach here just about noon, 
and dinner will be spread for six. Give my love 
to the boys, and tell them that the old roan horse 
will carry double, and has been growing fat and 
lazy, missing Ted and Dot, who have been for two 
years his summer riders. 

With much love and happy anticipation of 
our meeting, I am, Margery, your affectionate 
grandmother, Elizabeth Burney. 

Enclosed with this was a note to Mrs. Morgan, 
giving her a personal invitation in more formal 
phrase, but in the same sweetly cordial strain. 

Margery gave both letters to Mrs. Morgan, too 
excited to speak. Would she — oh ! would she 
go ? Her heart fairly stood still with anxiety as 
she watched Mrs. Morgan’s countenance while 
she read the letters. 

And Mrs. Morgan ? As she read the gracious 
words, breathing the old-fashioned hospitality of 


290 


MARGERY^ S VACATION. 


her childhood days and full of sweet suggestions 
of freedom, rest, and plenty, it seemed to her for 
a moment as though the gates of paradise had 
been flung wide open for her entrance. But as 
usual that stern sentinel, Pride, who continually 
guarded the outposts of her heart, stepped forth, 
with intent to close them ruthlessly before her 
very eyes and lock them with the key of firm 
refusal. She laid down the letters, and began to 
say very calmly : — 

“Of course, Margery, it is very kind of your 
grandmother to ask us, but” — 

“ Donty' cried Margery impulsively, and putting 
out her hand as if to ward off a blow — “ please 
don’t say any ‘buts,’ dear Mrs. Morgan. Think 
of the boys — think how pale Walter is growing, 
and Fred was restless all night, and Miss Gail 
says the fever is spreading fearfully — and — 
and” — losing all self-control and speaking with- 
out a moment’s reflection — “ / do so want to 
go.r* 

“ Why, of course,” said Mrs. Morgan, you 
will go. It would not be treating your grand- 
mother right to refuse; but our going is a different 
thing, and I do not ” — 

“ But I certainly shall not go without you, and 


IN THE COUNTRY. 


291 


nothing that you can say will make me change 
my mind ! ” 

Mrs. Morgan looked at Margery in amazement. 
She had never heard her speak in that tone be- 
fore, and one glance at her face assured her that 
she meant what she said. Her own face paled 
slightly, and with a sudden revulsion of feeling 
she dealt Pride a heavy blow and said quietly : — 
‘‘ I think, Margery, we will accept your grand- 
mother’s invitation.” 

It was Margery’s turn to be surprised. 

“ Oh, forgive me ! ” she said. “ I did not mean 
to be selfish, and I am afraid I was rude — but I 
do so much want you to go ! ” 

“You were neither selfish nor rude,” replied 
Mrs. Morgan, speaking with unusual gentleness. 
“ It was I who was wrong. I am very grateful 
to your grandmother, and we must waste no time 
if we do not wish to disappoint them.” 

“ Oh, it is too good to be true ! ” cried Mar- 
gery, the quick tears springing to her eyes. 
“ Whatever will Gertrude say } May I tell the 
boys now t Oh, what will they say ? Walter ! 
Fred! come here, come quick — I’ve such news 
for you ! ” and she rushed gayly from the room, 
leaving Mrs. Morgan to recover as best she might 


292 


MARGERY'S VACATION. 


from the surprise of the new situation in which 
she found herself, and to begin plans for their 
sudden journey. 

So the dinner spread for six was partaken of 
by the expected guests in the long, cool dining 
room of the farmhouse — a room with comfort 
and plenty suggested by its every feature. Poor 
Mrs. Morgan could hardly tell which feelings 
were uppermost in her mind, whether of joy or 
sorrow, for the sight of the old-fashioned farm- 
house standing in its little grove of elms and 
maples and poplars, the large, hospitable house, 
with its pure white paint and its cool, green 
blinds, its broad veranda with the old-fashioned 
settee, sent such a throng of bygone memories 
rushing in upon her heart that it was with diffi- 
culty she could command herself to greet the 
sweet-faced old lady in her white cap who stood 
by the gate to welcome them, and who, with 
her own hands, lifted Fred from the carryall 
and gave him such a grandmotherly kiss as stole 
his heart completely away on the instant. 

Oh, then it all came back — those summer 
visits that she used to make to her grandmother 
when she was of the age that Walter and Fred 
were now. And they — they had never known a 


IN THE COUNTRY. 


293 


grandmother and had never before, since their 
memory, been without the limits of the noisy, 
dusty city. No wonder that Fred whispered to 
Margery in an awe-struck voice as the carryall 
stopped before the gate, and asked her if this was 
heaven and if God lived in that big, white house, 
and if that was an angel who stood by the gate, the 
one with the pretty silver hair and its wings folded 
down tight. (Grandma Burney wore the old- 
fashioned plaited white kerchief crossed upon her 
breast.) And the old-fashioned sitting room ! It 
might have been her own grandmother’s, so like it 
all was to the one she remembered. The broad, 
wood fireplace, with its brass andirons (it was filled 
in now with great branches of asparagus covered 
with red berries), and its high mantel on which 
stood vases of dried grass and immortelles and a 
big blue pitcher filled with marigolds, bachelor 
buttons, ragged lady, and all the dear old flowers. 
Yes, and there was the very cupboard, or long, 
low closet at one side of the fireplace, where 
the wood for the next day was stored each night 
and neatly shut in by a black-painted door to 
match the mantel. Above the mantel hung the 
family record, with bunches of peacock feathers, 
crossed above it, and all about the walls were 


294 


MARGERY^ S FACATION. 


family portraits done in oil, mostly of elderly 
people with hands stiffly crossed, but there was 
one young girl of seventeen, perhaps, in a blue 
seeded silk dress and a mass of golden hair 
gathered in a net and hanging low upon her 
neck. 

Mrs. Morgan started when she saw it. It was 
Margery’s mother, and she had worn that very 
dress when they walked together from church 
one Sunday in the long ago, and she had con- 
fided to her the wonderful news of her engage- 
ment to Walter Morgan ! How far they had 
grown apart in all these intervening years, and 
now what a singular bond was drawing them to- 
gether again ! How they were living it all over 
in the intimacy of their daughters, but how 
strangely altered were their relations ! 

But the room — her thoughts came back to 
that. There was the homemade yarn carpet, 
with its gay stripes of red, green, and yellow, the 
flowered chintz curtains at the windows, the 
broad, chintz-covered lounge, the old-fashioned 
wooden rockers, cushioned with the same material, 
and the high-backed, splint-bottomed chairs. 
There, too, was the moss hanging basket in the 
south window, with its long arms of wandering 


IN THE COUNTRY. 


295 


Jew, its cool, shining ice plant and golden-starred 
money vine. There was the paper receiver 
against the wall, made of stiff pasteboard and 
covered with gayly-flowered wall paper, and a 
match set of perforated cardboard, the work of 
some more modern daughter of the family. And 
there was — but now they were called into the 
dining room ; and still the familiar aspect of every- 
thing continued. The green slat curtains at the 
windows, the green paint ‘of the wainscoted room, 
the straw matting on the floor, the square-cornered 
leaf table, with its snowy linen and dark blue 
landscaped crockery. Everything to eat was on 
it, and there were no courses ; so the boys could 
enjoy to the full their calculations of how much 
chicken they could afford to eat if they left room 
enough for apple pie and doughnuts and straw- 
berry preserves. And such milk ! A great blue 
pitcher filled to the brim with rich, creamy milk, 
to be poured out in glasses and drunk as freely as 
water I 

And after dinner was over do you think the 
boys were long in finding the orchard and the old 
roan horse — and — Well, if you ever have been 
a boy, you know all about it, and if you have not 
there is no use in my trying to tell you. I doubt 


296 


MARGERY'S VACATION. 


if I ought to have brought my party to the farm 
— it will be so hard to get away with them again ; 
and, on second thoughts, as I must leave them 
somewhere very soon, vacation being so nearly 
over, I think I will leave them there. Surely we 
shall have pleasant memories of them so. And 
the truth is, when the first of September came 
and brought with it the leave-taking, only half of 
the party could be gotten away — for grandma 
could not give up Fred, and grandpa could by 
no means spare Walter, who, as he said, had 
become his “right hand man”; and when Mrs. 
Morgan shook her head and said something about 
school, Mrs. Burney laid her hand gently on her 
arm and, looking into her eyes with a clear, steady 
gaze, said : — 

“ My dear, what is school to health and strength 
for these dear children } But it is not the school 
that troubles you, I think. You know how much 
we want them ; you know how glad they would be 
to stay a while longer ; you know the city is full 
of heat and sickness for a month or two yet, and 
surely you will not let your ” — 

“No, no, I will not let it,” said Mrs Morgan 
vehemently. “You need not say the word. It 
is an ugly word, and I am beginning to believe 


IN THE COUNTRY. 297 

that the poor have more of it than the rich. The 
boys shall stay, and the Lord will bless you for 
it; I cannot.” 

Thank you,” said Mrs. Burney ; “ I am blessed 
already, and you ought to be, for the good Word 
tells us it is more blessed to give than to receive, 
and you have given me — for a time — your boys.” 

Before we leave them, however, I wish to tell 
you about the last vacation Sunday, as I told you 
about the first. Not about the entire Sunday, 
either, but about Mrs. Morgan in church. She 
had been persuaded to go with the family that 
morning, partly for fear of offending if she 
refused, and partly because of the pleasure of 
the long ride to the country church. Again, at 
sight of the plain, white church with its tall spire, 
and surrounded by the city of the dead, came 
those tender, thronging thoughts and visions of 
her youth. How light-hearted she had been then! 
How bright life seemed before her! She looked 
almost enviously at a group of gay, rosy-cheeked 
girls just passing in at the door. Even Walter 
and Fred seemed to have forgotten their poverty, 
and were taking their fill of boyish comfort. Mar- 
gery seemed to have thrown off every vestige of 
care since she came to the farm, and was glad- 


298 MARGEHY^S VACATION. 

ness personified. Grandpa and grandma Burney 
wore their habitual look of serene cheerfulness. 
She alone, of all the congregation, seemed borne 
down by burdens too heavy to bear. Gertrude, 
too, had been able to cast off her load for a 
season. She was coming home soon — would 
she be sorry to take it up again } She had been 
all these weeks with Mrs. Mayne, and had grown 
to love her dearly — so her letters said. A pang 
of unreasoning jealousy passed sharply through 
her heart. What if — but no, she would not 
think of that — Gertrude was all in all to her. 
She had been a good daughter ; but to-day, among 
all these kind people, she felt so alone ! 

As they sat now in the little straight-backed 
pew, waiting for service to begin, she was so 
absorbed by these thoughts that she scarcely 
heeded what was going on about her. Margery 
had taken her place in the choir. They always 
expected her to sing if she was at the farm but 
a single Sunday. The minister walked up the 
aisle and entered the pulpit. Mrs. Morgan did 
not see him. The congregation rose as the 
organist struck the first notes and sang, — 

“ Praise God, from whom all blessings flow.” 

Mrs. Morgan did not sing. She felt no praise 


IN THE COUNTRY. 


299 


in her heart. Mechanically she bowed her head 
when the minister said, Let us pray,” but she 
heard not a word of the prayer. Instead of the 
prayer, these words had taken possession of her 
thoughts and were repeating themselves over and 
over to her : — 

“ Spirit, O my spirit, is it thou art out of tune, 

Art thou clinging to December while the earth is in its 
June? 

Hast thou dropped thy part in nature? hast thou touched 
another key? 

Art thou angry that the anthem will not, can not, wait for 
thee?” 

She did not even heed the minister’s “ Amen,” 
or know that the prayer was finished until the 
notes of the organ sounded again. 

Softly, sweetly ran the prelude, waking a 
strange responsive echo in Mrs. Morgan’s heart, 
as of a loved and long-forgotten but suddenly 
recalled melody. What was this strangely famil- 
iar strain ? Now the choir took it up and gave 
it voice and language, Margery’s clear, sweet 
soprano separated from the rest as a solo from 
its accompaniment, — 


“Cast thy burden on the Lord.” 


300 


MARGERY^ S VACATION. 


Over and over the sweet invitation rang out, 
rising and falling softly in the hush of the sum- 
mer air, — 

“He will sustain thee; 

He will strengthen thee; 

He will comfort thee ; ” 

Higher and higher rose the notes. Full of tri- 
umphant assurance rang Margery’s voice, so that 
Mrs. Morgan felt a strong emphasis on the “ will ” 
scarcely demanded by the music, which fell again 
in soft cadence and ended in the refrain 

“Cast thy burden on the Lord.” 

After that, all through the sermon, Mrs. Morgan 
heard only the words of this old-fashioned anthem, 
whose sweet music had made it one of the favor- 
ites of her girlhood, but which she had not heard 
for years and years. She was peculiarly silent on 
their homeward ride, but both grandma and Mar- 
gery thought they noticed that her pale face wore 
a look more akin to peace than they had ever 
seen there before. 

Months afterward she told Margery how, upon 
that Sunday, in answer to the gracious invitation 
of her song, she did indeed cast the burden 


IN THE COUNTRY. 


301 


which for so many weary years she had borne 
alone upon Him who so long ago had “ carried 
our sorrows.” And Margery's eyes filled with 
glad tears as she said, “And I was thinking of 
you all the time as I sang.” 


/ 


CHAPTER XXII. 


THE KALEIDOSCOPE. 


MONO the playthings of my childhood of 



^ which I seldom tired was a cheap kaleido- 
scope. I can recall distinctly now the pleasure 
which it gave to watch the almost infinite variety 
of form and coloring which could be produced 
by a slight turn or jar of the instrument, and 
when, one unlucky day, my treasure was broken 
in pieces, with what wonder I surveyed the very 
few and insignificant pieces of common, colored 
glass which had produced these brilliant effects. 
Since then I have sometimes thought that we, as 
individuals, stand in somewhat the same relation 
to the moral beauty and spiritual welfare of the 
world as these bits of glass to the real object of 
the kaleidoscope, which is to show, not the beauty 
or worth of each separate piece of glass, but 
what beauty is possible when they move easily, 
promptly, and harmoniously together. But in the 
case of the human kaleidoscope — reverently let 
it be said — it is God who shakes the glass and 


302 


THE KALEIDOSCOPE. 


30.3 

there is no chance in the arrangement of the 
pieces. 

One of my childish amusements used to be, 
when playing with this instrument, to fix in my 
memory the color and shape of one particular 
piece and see where it would turn up in the 
next figure — now at top, now at bottom, in the 
middle, on one side ; which is also the way the 
human figures move. 

Let us take a few glimpses into this wonderful 
instrument, with our eyes upon the figures which 
we have been following in the preceding chapters 
of this story. 

It is set now at a time shortly after the return 
of the Mayne party from Colorado, and what do 
we see } Gertrude, with renewed health and vigor, 
busy with her school studies and the preparation 
of her wild flower souvenirs, which are selling 
faster than she can find time to prepare them. 
Gertrude also a member of the Christian En- 
deavor Society, and with Margery helping in the 
mission school, where the latter still retains her 
summer class and strives to give a proper bent 
to the somewhat original mind of Bob Stark. 
Walter and Fred are still at the farm, and so 
happily and healthily seems to pass their life 


304 


MARGERY^ S VACATION. 


there and so loath to part with them seem their 
foster grandparents that Mrs. Morgan almost 
despairs, sometimes, of being able to get them 
home again. Margery thinks the best part of it 
all is to see the smile come back to Mrs. Mor- 
gan’s face and to see how the old-time intimacy 
between her own mother and the mother of her 
dearest friend is reviving and growing and ripen- 
ing into a helpful friendship, which shall prove — 
so she thinks, viewing it with partial eyes — of 
untold benefit to Mrs. Morgan ! That her own 
mother could be improved by any social contact 
is to her an impossible idea — so impossible 
indeed that it has never entered her mind at all. 
Mrs. Morgan too is much improved in health, 
and, though the cough does not leave her, with 
the cares of mind and body lightened she endures 
her labor with so much greater ease that Gertrude 
is able to pursue this, her last year’s work in 
school, comparatively free from that wearing 
anxiety about her mother’s health. 

And Maggie Dart } Mrs. Morgan no longer 
dreads her influence over the boys, when they 
shall return from the farm. She is by no means 
perfect, of course ; but she is the firm friend and 
ally of the Morgan family, and Gertrude can 


THE KALEIDOSCOPE. 


305 


hardly wonder enough at the change which has 
taken place in her. She finds no time now to 
hang over the line fence and plot mischief, so 
busy is she with keeping the little house in order 
and learning to sew and mend. Her heart swells 
with pride and pleasure when her father tells her 
how like her “ maw ” she is growing every day. 
She finds him more than ready to cooperate with 
her in all her plans for “ fixing up ” their home. 
Among other things he has made a couple of neat 
bookshelves to hold Maggie’s treasures, and Miss 
Gail and Margery are careful to see that an occa- 
sional new and truly helpful volume finds a place 
beside the “ Memawrs of Nathan Dickerman ” 
and the rest of her queer collection. Gertrude, 
too, has taken quite on interest in her. She has 
even undertaken the task of helping her bring 
her arithmetic and geography up to such a point 
that she can enter school another year without 
going into a class with such small children as to 
shame her. In return for this Maggie’s strong 
hands do much of the heavy work at the Morgan 
cottage. Maggie is also a member of Miss Gail’s 
class in the mission school. This class, by the 
way, are bending every energy to earn money for 
a new library for the school. It is a profound 


3o6 


MARGERY^ S VACATION, 


secret between them, of course, but they mean to 
have the nucleus of it, at least, ready to present to 
the school at Christmas time, and then the other 
classes will be allowed to help. Do you not think 
that clean, new books purchased thus, and selected 
by the careful judgment of Miss Gail and Mrs. 
Mayne, will be read with more interest than the 
cast-off volumes of twenty years ago, given as old 
clothes are to beggars Little by little Miss Gail 
means to draw Maggie into her other charities, 
for she believes no other stimulant to spiritual 
growth is so great as working for others. Gladly 
would we linger here to see this newborn soul 
grow toward the light, but we must hasten on. 

The kaleidoscope turns : It is holiday time. 
There is a Christmas tree in Mrs. Mayne’s hand- 
some parlors, and the house is ablaze with light, 
warmth, and beauty. Quick ! take a glance at 
the faces of the guests before it turns again — 
Mrs. Morgan, Gertrude, Miss Gail, grandpa and 
grandma Burney, Walter and Fred — yes, and 
Bob Stark and all the other members of Mar- 
gery’s, Gertrude’s, and Miss Gail’s classes in the 
mission school. 

Turn again : June, and Gertrude’s graduation, 
of course with the honors of her class and all that. 


THE KALEIDOSCOPE, 


307 


One more turn : In Colorado again. A little 
log house on the wonderful “Divide,” just a few 
rods from the home of the hospitable Hewitts. 

In this house the Morgans are established on 
a ten-acre lot which, with the house and a yard 
full of fine chickens, was purchased with the money 
from the sale of their city home. Mrs. Morgan’s 
needle is laid aside now. She keeps the simple 
little home, helps the boys tend the chickens, 
and superintends the garden and gathers and 
presses flowers for the very profitable work which 
Gertrude still carries on in that line. As for 
Gertrude, she is mistress of the district school a 
mile away, to which the boys accompany her 
every morning, and are very much in love with 
their teacher. They are coming home now. You 
can see them on the crest of that pine-covered 
knoll — Walter and Fred chasing chipmunks, pelt- 
ing each other with pine cones, and reveling in 
the delight of being boys — and country boys at 
that. Gertrude comes on with quick, elastic step, 
her sun hat, wreathed with glossy green kinniki- 
nic, hanging on one arm, while the other is filled 
with floral treasures. Some one from the Hewett 
house has seen them too — a girl in white, with 
sunny curls about her face. She speaks to a 


3o8 


MARGERY^ S VACATION. 


young man who is stretched lazily in a hammock 
near by. With sudden alacrity he springs to his 
feet, and together they walk toward the knoll to 
meet the young “ schoolma’am ” and her charge. 
Do you know them.? Yes, Harry and Margery 
are spending the summer with the Hewetts. 

Shall we turn again .? Such wonderful possibili- 
ties this strange instrument holds. For instance, 
after turns enough, there will be Harry and Ger- 
trude — but no ; we must stop somewhere, and 
perhaps this is the very best place at which to put 
our kaleidoscope aside. 

I am afraid it is with my story as with our lives. 
We just get into the best part of them when we 
are compelled to lay them down. Our individual 
effort is like a stone cast into water. We can see 
the few first ripples before we sink, but the rip- 
ples go on and on, ever widening after we are lost 
to sight. 

So I leave it to you, dear reader, to follow, in 
imagination, the ever-widening circles of helpful- 
ness which started from Margery’s pebble thrown 
into the sea of human needs. 


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